The fashion of play-making I can properly compare to nothing
so naturally as the alteration in apparel: for in the time of
the great crop-doublet, your huge bombasted plays, quilted with
mighty words to lean purposes, was only then in fashion. And
as the doublet fell, neater inventions began to set up. Now in
the time of spruceness, our plays follow the niceness of our garments:
single plots, quaintconceits, lecherous jests, dressed up in
hanging sleeves, and those are fit for the times and the termers.
Such a kind of light-colour summer stuff, mingled with diverse
colours, you shall find this published comedy, good to keep you
in an afternoon from dice, at home in your chambers; and for venery
you shall find enough for sixpence, but well couchedand you mark
it, for Venus being a woman passes through the play in doublet
in breeches, a brave disguise and a safe one if the statute untie
not her codpiece point. The book I make no question but is fit
for many of your companies, as well as the person itself, and
may be allowed both galley room at the playhouse, and chamber
room at your lodging. Worse things I must needs confess the world
has taxed her for than has been written of her; but 'tis the excellency
of a writer to leave things better than he finds 'em; though some
obscene fellow (that cares not what he writes against others,
yet keeps a mystical bawdy-house himself, and entertains drunkards
to make use of their pockets and vent his private bottle-ale at
midnight), though such a one would have ripped up the most nasty
vice that ever hell belched forth and presented it to a modest
assembly, yet we rather wish in such discoveries, where reputation
lies bleeding, a slackness of truth than a fullness of slander.

Thomas Middleton

Prologus

A play expected long makes the audience look
For wonders, that each scene should be a book,
Compos'd to all perfection; each one comes
And brings a play in's head with him: up he sums
What he would of a roaring girl have writ;
If that he finds not here, he mews at it.
Only we entreat you think our scene
Cannot speak high, the subject being but mean:
A roaring girl whose notes till now never were
Shall fill with laughter our vast theatre;
That's all which I dare promise: tragic passion,
And such grave stuff, is this day out of fashion.
I see attention sets wide ope her gates
Of hearing, and with covetous list'ning waits,
To know what girl this roaring girl should be,
For of that tribe are many. One is she
That roars at midnight in deep tavern bowls,
That beats the watch, and constables controls;
Another roars i' th' daytime, swears, stabs, gives braves,
Yet sells her soul to the lust of fools and slaves.
Both these are suburb roarers. Then there's beside
A civil city roaring girl, whose pride,
Feasting, and riding, shakes her husband's state,
And leaves him roaring through an iron grate.
None of these roaring girls is ours: she flies
With wings more lofty. Thus her character lies;
Yet what need characters, when to give a guess
Is better than the person to express?
But would you know who 'tis? Would you hear her name?
She is call'd mad Moll; her life, our acts proclaim.

Enter Mary Fitzallard disguised like a sempster with a case
for bands, and Neatfoot a serving-man with her, with a napkin on
his shoulder and a trencher in his hand as from table.

NEATFOOT
The young gentleman our young master, Sir Alexander's son, is
it into his ears, sweet damsel emblem of fragility, you desire
to have a message transported, or to be transcendent?

MARY
A private word or two, sir, nothing else.

NEATFOOT
You shall fructify in that which you come for: your pleasure shall
be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree
of generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is
to say, up, and deliver him to this your most white hand.

MARY
Thanks, sir.

NEATFOOT
And withal certify him that I have culled out for him, now his
belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon
his trencher at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech
your chastity?

NEATFOOT
Falling bands: it shall so be given him. If you please to venture
your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude
serving-men, and take such as they can set before you, you shall
be most seriously and ingeniously welcome.

NEATFOOT
Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans
in the buttery amongst our waiting-women?

MARY
Not now in truth, sir.

NEATFOOT
Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here;
presently it shall so be given him.

MARY
I humbly thank you, sir.

Exit Neatfoot.

But that my bosom
Is full of bitter sorrows, I could smile
To see this formal ape play antic tricks:
But in my breast a poisoned arrow sticks,
And smiles cannot become me. Love woven slightly,
Such as thy false heart makes, wears out as lightly,
But love being truly bred i' th' the soul like mine
Bleeds even to death at the least wound it takes:
The more we quench this [fire], the less it slakes.
Oh, me!

MARY
Yes, sir, a bond fast sealed with solemn oaths,
Subscribed unto as I thought with your soul,
Delivered as your deed in sight of heaven.
Is this bond cancell'd? Have you forgot me?
[She removes her disguise.]

SEBASTIAN
Ha! Life of my life: Sir Guy Fitzallard's daughter!
What has transform'd my love to this strange shape?
Stay, make all sure. So, now speak and be brief,
Because the wolf's at door that lies in wait
To prey upon us both. Albeit mine eyes
Are bless'd by thine, yet this so strange disguise
Holds me with fear and wonder.

MARY
Mine's a loathed sight.
Why from it are you banish'd else so long?

MARY
Umh! Must you shun my company? In one knot
Have both our hands by th' hands of heaven been tied,
Now to be broke? I thought me once your bride:
Our fathers did agree on the time when,
And must another bedfellow fill my room?

SEBASTIAN
Sweet maid, let's lose no time. 'Tis in heaven's book
Set down that I must have thee. An oath we took
To keep our vows, but when the knight your father
Was from mine parted, storms began to sit
Upon my covetous father's brow, which fell
From them on me. He reckon'd up what gold
This marriage would draw from him, at which he swore
To lose so much blood could not grieve him more.
He then dissuades me from thee, call'd thee not fair,
And ask'd what is she but a beggar's heir?
He scorn'd thy dowry of five thousand marks.
If such a sum of money could be found,
And I would match with that, he'd not undo it,
Provided his bags might add nothing to it,
But vow'd, if I took thee, nay, more, did swear it,
Save birth from him I nothing should inherit.

MARY
What follows then, my shipwreck?

SEBASTIAN
Dear'st, no:
Tho' wildly in a labyrinth I go,
My end is to meet thee; with a side wind
Must I now sail, else I no haven can find
But both must sink forever. There's a wench
Call'd Moll, mad Moll or merry Moll, a creature
So strange in quality a whole city takes
Note of her name and person. All that affection
I owe to thee on her in counterfeit passion
I spend to mad my father: he believes
I dote upon this roaring girl, and grieves
As it becomes a father for a son
That could be so bewitch'd. Yet I'll go on
This crooked way, sigh still for her, feign dreams
In which I'll talk only of her: these streams
Shall, I hope, force my father to consent
That here I anchor rather than be rent
Upon a rock so dangerous. Art thou pleas'd,
Because thou seest we are waylaid, that I take
A path that's safe, tho' it be far about?

MARY
My prayers with heaven guide thee.

SEBASTIAN
Then I will on.
My father is at hand: kiss and be gone.
Hours shall be watch'd for meetings; I must now,
As men for fear, to a strange idol bow.

MARY
Farewell.

SEBASTIAN
I'll guide thee forth; when next we meet
A story of Moll shall make our mirth more sweet.

SIR DAVY
When bounty spreads the table, faith, 'twere sin,
At going off, if thanks should not step in.

SIR ALEXANDER
No more of thanks, no more. Ay, marry, sir,
Th' inner room was too close. How do you like
This parlour, gentlemen?

OMNES
Oh, passing well!

SIR ADAM
What a sweet breath the air casts here, so cool!

GOSHAWK
I like the prospect best.

LAXTON
See how 'tis furnish'd.

SIR DAVY
A very fair, sweet room.

SIR ALEXANDER
Sir Davy Dapper,
The furniture that doth adorn this room
Cost many a fair grey groat ere it came here,
But good things are most cheap when th' are most dear.
Nay, when you look into my galleries,
How bravely they are trimm'd up, you all shall swear
Y'are highly pleas'd to see what's set down there:
Stories of men and women mix'd together,
Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather;
Within one square a thousand heads are laid
So close that all of heads the room seems made.
As many faces there fill'd with blithe looks
Show like the promising titles of new books
Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,
Which seem to move and to give plaudities.
And here and there, whilst with obsequious ears
Throng'd heaps do listen, a cutpurse thrusts and leers
With hawk's eyes for his prey; I need not show him:
By a hanging villainous look yourselves may know him,
The face is drawn so rarely. Then, sir, below,
The very flower as 'twere waves to and fro,
And like a floating island seems to move
Upon a sea bound in with shores above.

Enter Sebastian and M[aster] Greenwit.

OMNES
These sights are excellent.

SIR ALEXANDER
I'll show you all.
Since we are met, make our parting comical.

SEBASTIAN
This gentleman, my friend, will take his leave, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER
Ha, take his leave, Sebastian? Who?

SEBASTIAN
This gentleman.

SIR ALEXANDER
Your love, sir, has already given me some time,
And if you please to trust my age with more,
It shall pay double interest. Good sir, stay.

GREENWIT
I have been too bold.

SIR ALEXANDER
Not so, sir. A merry day
'Mongst friends being spent is better than gold sav'd.
Some wine, some wine. Where be these knaves I keep?

SIR ALEXANDER
I know you had, good Master Laxton. So, so.
Now here's a mess of friends, and, gentlemen,
Because time's glass shall not be running long,
I'll quicken it with a pretty tale.

SIR DAVY
Good tales do well
In these bad days, where vice does so excel.

SIR ADAM
Begin, Sir Alexander.

SIR ALEXANDER
Last day I met
An aged man upon whose head was scor'd
A debt of just so many years as these
Which I owe to my grave: the man you all know.

OMNES
His name I pray you, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER
Nay, you shall pardon me;
But when he saw me, with a sigh that brake,
Or seem'd to break, his heartstrings, thus he spake:
"Oh, my good knight," says he, and then his eyes
Were richer even by that which made them poor,
They had spent so many tears they had no more.
"Oh, sir," says he, "you know it, for you ha' seen
Blessings to rain upon mine house and me:
Fortune, who slaves men, was my slave; her wheel
Hath spun me golden threads, for, I thank heaven,
I ne'er had but one cause to curse my stars."
I ask'd him then what that one cause might be.

OMNES
So, sir?

SIR ALEXANDER
He paus'd, and as we often see
A sea so much becalm'd there can be found
No wrinkle on his brow, his waves being drown'd
In their own rage, but when th' imperious wind[s]
Use strange invisible tyranny to shake
Both heaven's and earth's foundation at their noise,
The seas, swelling with wrath to part that fray,
Rise up and are more wild, more mad, than they:
Even so this good old man was by my question
Stirr'd up to roughness, you might see his gall
Flow even in's eyes. Then grew he fantastical.

SIR DAVY
Fantastical? Ha, ha!

SIR ALEXANDER
Yes, and talk['d] oddly.

SIR ADAM
Pray, sir, proceed:
How did this old man end?

SIR ALEXANDER
Marry, sir, thus:
He left his wild fit to read o'er his cards,
Yet then, though age cast snow on all his hairs,
He joy'd because, says he, "The god of gold
Has been to me no niggard: that disease
Of which all old men sicken, avarice,
Never infected me."

LAXTON
[Aside] He means not himself, I'm sure.

SIR ALEXANDER
"For, like a lamp
Fed with continual oil, I spend and throw
My light to all that need it, yet have still
Enough to serve myself. Oh, but," quoth he,
"Tho' heaven's dew fall thus on this aged tree,
I have a son that like a wedge doth cleave
My very heart-root."

SIR DAVY
Had he such a son?

SEBASTIAN
[Aside] Now I do smell a fox strongly.

SIR ALEXANDER
Let's see: no, Master Greenwit is not yet
So mellow in years as he; but as like Sebastian,
Just like my son Sebastian, such another.

SEBASTIAN
[Aside] How finely like a fencer my father fetches his
by-blows to hit me, but if I beat you not at your own weapon of
subtlety--

SIR ALEXANDER
Sir Davy Dapper,
I have upon my knees woo'd this fond boy
To take that virtuous maiden.

SEBASTIAN
Hark you, a word, sir.
You on your knees have curs'd that virtuous maiden
And me for loving her, yet do you now
Thus baffle me to my face? [Wear] not your knees
In such entreats; give me Fitzallard's daughter.

SIR ALEXANDER
I'll give thee rats-bane rather!

SEBASTIAN
Well, then you know
What dish I mean to feed upon.

SIR ALEXANDER
Hark, gentlemen, he swears
To have this cutpurse drab to spite my gall.

OMNES
Master Sebastian!

SEBASTIAN
I am deaf to you all.
I'm so bewitch'd, so bound to my desires,
Tears, prayers, threats, nothing can quench out those fires
That burn within me.

SIR ALEXANDER
Before his eyes
Lay down his shame, my grief, his miseries.

OMNES
No more, no more, away!

Exeunt all but Sir Alexander.

SIR ALEXANDER
I wash a negro,
Losing both pains and cost; but take thy flight:
I'll be most near thee when I'm least in sight.
Wild buck, I'll hunt thee breathless; thou shalt run on,
But I will turn thee when I'm not thought upon.

SIR ALEXANDER
Troth, honest fellow. [Aside] Humh, ha, let me see.
This knave shall be the axe to hew that down
At which I stumble; h'as a face that promiseth
Much of a villain. I will grind his wit,
And if the edge prove fine make use of it.--
Come hither, sirrah. Canst thou be secret, ha?

The first a pothecary's shop, the next a feather shop, the
third a sempster's shop: Mistress Gallipot in the first, Mistress
Tiltyard in the next, Master Openwork and his wife in the third.
To them enters Laxton, Goshawk and Greenwit.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Gentlemen, what is't you lack? What is't you buy? See fine bands
and ruffs, fine lawns, fine cambrics! What is't you lack, gentlemen,
what is't you buy?

LAXTON
Ay, she's a gentlewoman born, I can tell you, tho' it be her hard
fortune now to shred Indian pot-herbs.

GOSHAWK
Oh, sir, 'tis many a good woman's fortune, when her husband turns
bankrout, to begin with pipes and set up again.

LAXTON
And indeed the raising of the woman is the lifting up of the man's
head at all times: if one flourish, t'other will bud as fast,
I warrant ye.

GOSHAWK
Come, th' art familiarly acquainted there, I grope that.

LAXTON
And you grope no better i' th' dark, you may chance lie i' th'
ditch when y'are drunk.

GOSHAWK
Go, th' art a mystical lecher.

LAXTON
I will not deny but my credit may take up an ounce of pure smoke.

GOSHAWK
May take up an ell of pure smock. Away, go! [Aside] 'Tis
the closeststriker. Life, I think he commits venery foot deep;
no man's aware on't. I like a palpable smockster go to work so
openly with the tricks of art that I'm as apparently seen as a
naked boy in a vial, and were it not for a gift of treachery that
I have in me to betray my friend when he puts most trust in me--mass,
yonder he is too--and by his injury to make good my access to
her, I should appear as defective in courting as a farmer's son
the first day of his feather that doth nothing at court but woo
the hangings and glass windows for a month together, and some
broken waiting-woman forever after. I find those imperfections
in my venery that were 't not for flattery and falsehood, I should
want discourse and impudence, and he that wants impudence among
women is worthy to be kick'd out at beds' feet. He shall not
see me yet.

GREENWIT
Troth, this is finely shred.

LAXTON
Oh, women are the best mincers.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'T had been a good phrase for a cook's wife, sir.

LAXTON
But 'twill serve generally, like the front of a new almanac, as
thus: calculated for the meridian of cooks' wives, but generally
for all Englishwomen.

LAXTON
I thought 'twas good, you were grown so silent; you are like those
that love not to talk at victuals, tho' they make a worse noise
i' the nose than a common fiddler's prentice and discourse a whole
supper with snuffling. [Aside to Mistress Gallipot] I
must speak a word with you anon.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
[Aside to Laxton] Make your way wisely then.

GOSHAWK
Oh, what else, sir? He's perfection itself, full of manners,
but not an acre of ground belonging to ['im].

LAXTON
Why, 'tis but for want of opportunity, thou know'st. [Aside]
I put her off with opportunity still. By this light, I hate her
but for means to keep me in fashion with gallants, for what I
take from her I spend upon other wenches. Bear her in hand still;
she has wit enough to rob her husband, and I ways enough to consume
the money.--[Approaching Goshawk from behind and slapping him
on the back] Why, how now? What, the chincough?

GOSHAWK
Thou hast the cowardliest trick to come before a man's face and
strangle him ere he be aware! I could find in my heart to make
a quarrel in earnest.

LAXTON
Pox and thou dost--thou know'st I never use to fight with my friends--thou'll
but lose thy labour in't.

GULL
How! Three single halfpence! Life, this will scarce serve a
man in sauce, a hal'p'orth of mustard, a hal'p'orth of oil, and
a hal'p'orth of vinegar. What's left then for the pickle herring?
This shows like small beer i' th' morning after a great surfeit
of wine o'ernight. He could spend his three pound last night
in a supper amongst girls and brave bawdy-house boys; I thought
his pockets cackl'd not for nothing. These are the eggs of three
pound; I'll go sup 'em up presently.

Exit Gull.

LAXTON
[Aside, counting his money] Eight, nine, ten angels. Good
wench, i'faith, and one that loves darkness well: she puts out
a candle with the best tricks of any drugster's wife in England;
but that which mads her, I rail upon opportunity still and take
no notice on't. The other night she would needs lead me into
a room with a candle in her hand to show me a naked picture, where
no sooner entered but the candle was sent of an arrant; now I
not intending to understand her, but, like a puny at the inns
of venery, call'd for another light innocently: thus reward I
all her cunning with simple mistaking. I know she cozens her
husband to keep me, and I'll keep her honest as long as I can
to make the poor man some part of amends: an honest mind of a
whoremaster!--How think you amongst you? What, a fresh pipe?
Draw in a third man.

LAXTON
[Aside] Heart, I would give but too much money to be nibbling
with that wench! Life, sh'as the spirit of four great parishes,
and a voice that will drown all the city; methinks a brave captain
might get all his soldiers upon her and ne'er be beholding to
a company of Mile End milksops, if he could come on and come off
quick enough. Such a Moll were a marrow-bone before an Italian;
he would cry bona roba till his ribs were nothing but bone. I'll
lay hard siege to her; money is that aqua fortis that eats
into many a maidenhead: where the walls are flesh and blood, I'll
ever pierce through with a golden auger.

GOSHAWK
Now thy judgment, Moll: is't not good?

MOLL
Yes, faith, 'tis very good tobacco. How do you sell an ounce?
Farewell. God b'i'you, Mistress Gallipot.

GOSHAWK
Why, Moll, Moll!

MOLL
I cannot stay now, i'faith. I am going to buy a shag ruff; the
shop will be shut in presently.

GOSHAWK
'Tis the maddest, fantastical'st girl: I never knew so much flesh
and so much nimbleness put together.

MOLL
You goody Openwork, you that prick out a poor living
And sews many a bawdy skin-coat together,
Thou private pandress between shirt and smock,
I wish thee for a minute but a man:
Thou shouldst never use more shapes. But as th' art
I pity my revenge: now my spleen's up,
I would not mock it willingly.

Enter a Fellow with a long rapier by his side.

Ha! Be thankful.
Now I forgive thee.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Marry, hang thee;
I never ask'd forgiveness in my life.

MOLL
You, goodman swine's-face!

FELLOW
What, will you murder me?

MOLL
You remember, slave, how you abus'd me t'other night in a tavern?

FELLOW
Not I, by this light.

MOLL
No, but by candlelight you did. You have tricks to save your
oaths, reservations have you, and I have reserved somewhat for
you. [Strikes him.] As you like that, call for more; you
know the sign again.

FELLOW
Pox on't, had I brought any company along with me to have borne
witness on't; 'twould ne'er have griev'd me; but to be struck
and nobody by, 'tis my ill fortune still. Why, tread upon a worm,
they say 'twill turn tail, but indeed a gentleman should have
more manners.

Exit Fellow.

LAXTON
Gallantly performed, i'faith, Moll, and manfully! I love thee
forever for't! Base rogue! Had he offer'd but the least counterbuff,
by this hand I was prepared for him.

MOLL
You prepared for him! Why should you be prepared for him? Was
he any more than a man?

MOLL
Why do you speak this then? Do you think I cannot ride a stone
horse unless one lead him by th' snaffle?

LAXTON
Yes, and sit him bravely; I know thou canst, Moll. 'Twas but
an honest mistake through love, and I'll make amends for't any
way. Prithee, sweet, plump Moll, when shall thou and I go out
a' town together?

OPENWORK
I am of such a nature, sir, I cannot endure the house when she
scolds. Sh' has a tongue will be [heard] further in a still morning
than Saint Antling's bell. She rails upon me for foreign wenching,
that I being a freeman must needs keep a whore i' th' suburbs,
and seek to impoverish the liberties. When we fall out, I trouble
you still to make all whole with my wife.

GOSHAWK
No trouble at all; 'tis a pleasure to me to join things together.

OPENWORK
Go thy ways. [Aside] I do this but to try thy honesty,
Goshawk.

The feather shop

JACK
How lik'st thou this, Moll?

MOLL
Oh, singularly! You're fitted now for a bunch. [Aside]
He looks for all the world with those spangled feathers like a
nobleman's bedpost! The purity of your wench would I fain try;
she seems like Kent, unconquered, and I believe as many wiles
are in her. Oh, the gallants of these times are shallow lechers;
they put not their courtship home enough to a wench. 'Tis impossible
to know what woman is thoroughly honest, because she's ne'er thoroughly
tried; I am of that certain belief there are more queans in this
town of their own making than of any man's provoking. Where lies
the slackness then? Many a poor soul would down, and there's
nobody will push 'em:
Women are courted but ne'er soundly tried,
As many walk in spurs that never ride.

The sempster's shop.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, abominable!

GOSHAWK
Nay, more: I tell you in private, he keeps a whore i' th' suburbs.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, spital dealing! I came to him a gentlewoman born. I'll show
you mine arms when you please, sir.

GOSHAWK
[Aside] I had rather see your legs and begin that way.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
'Tis well known he took me from a lady's service, where I was
well beloved of the steward; I had my Latin tongue and a spice
of the French before I came to him, and now doth he keep a suburbian
whore under my nostrils.

GOSHAWK
There's ways enough to cry quit with him; hark in thine ear.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
There's a friend worth a million.

MOLL
[Aside] I'll try one spear against your chastity, Mistress
Tiltyard, though it prove too short by the [burr].

Enter Ralph Trapdoor.

TRAPDOOR
[Aside] Mass, here she is! I'm bound already to serve
her, tho' it be but a sluttish trick.--Bless my hopeful young
mistress with long life and great limbs! Send her the upper hand
of all bailiffs and their hungry adherents!

MOLL
How now! What art thou?

TRAPDOOR
A poor, ebbing gentleman that would gladly wait for the young
flood of your service.

MOLL
My service! What should move you to offer your service to me,
sir?

TRAPDOOR
The love I bear to your heroic spirit and masculine womanhood.

MOLL
So, sir, put case we should retain you to us, what parts are there
in you for a gentlewoman's service?

TRAPDOOR
Of two kinds, right worshipful, movable and immovable: movable
to run of arrants, and immovable to stand when you have occasion
to use me.

MOLL
What strength have you?

TRAPDOOR
Strength, Mistress Moll? I have gone up into a steeple and stayed
the great bell as 't has been ringing, stopp'd a windmill going.

MOLL
And never struck down yourself?

TRAPDOOR
Stood as upright as I do at this present.

Molls trips up his heels; he falls.

MOLL
Come, I pardon you for this; it shall be no disgrace to you: I
have struck up the heels of the high German's size ere now. What,
not stand?

TRAPDOOR
I am of that nature where I love, I'll be at my mistress' foot
to do her service.

MOLL
Why, well said. But say your mistress should receive injury:
have you the spirit of fighting in you? Durst you second her?

TRAPDOOR
Life, I have kept a bridge myself and drove seven at a time before
me.

MOLL
Ay?

TRAPDOOR aside
But they were all Lincolnshire bullocks, by my troth.

MOLL
Well, meet me in Gray's Inn Fields between three and four this
afternoon, and upon better consideration we'll retain you.

LAXTON
He's a good guest to 'm; he deserves his board:
He draws all the gentlemen in a term-time thither.
We'll be your followers, Jack, lead the way.
Look you, by my faith, the fool has feather'd his nest well.

GALLIPOT
Push, let your boy lead his water-spaniel along and we'll show
you the bravest sport at Parlous Pond. Hey Trug, hey Trug, hey
Trug! Here's the best duck in England, except my wife.
Hey, hey, hey, fetch, fetch, fetch, come let's away;
Of all the year this is the sportfull'st day.

SEBASTIAN
If a man have a free will, where should the use
More perfect shine than in his will to love?
All creatures have their liberty in that,

Enter Sir Alexander and listens to him.

Tho' else kept under servile yoke and fear;
The very bondslave has his freedom there.
Amongst a world of creatures voic'd and silent
Must my desires wear fetters? [Aside] Yea, are you
So near? Then I must break with my heart's truth,
Meet grief at a back way; well.--Why, suppose
The two-leav'd tongues of slander or of truth
Pronounce Moll loathsome: if before my love
She appear fair, what injury have I?
I have the thing I like. In all things else
Mine own eye guides me, and I find 'em prosper.
Life, what should ail it now? I know that man
Ne'er truly loves, if he gainsay 't he lies,
That winks and marries with his father's eyes.
I'll keep mine own wide open.

SEBASTIAN
Why, 'twere too great a burthen, love, to have them carry things
in their minds and a' their backs together.

MOLL
Pardon me, sir, I thought not you so near.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] So, so, so.

SEBASTIAN
I would be nearer to thee, and in that fashion
That makes the best part of all creatures honest.
No otherwise I wish it.

MOLL
Sir, I am so poor to requite you, you must look for nothing but
thanks of me. I have no humour to marry: I love to lie a' both
sides a' th' bed myself; and again a' th' other side, a wife,
you know, ought to be obedient, but I fear me I am too headstrong
to obey, therefore I'll ne'er go about it. I love you so well,
sir, for your good will I'd be loath you should repent your bargain
after, and therefore we'll ne'er come together at first. I have
the head now of myself and am man enough for a woman; marriage
is but a chopping and changing, where a maiden loses one head
and has a worse i' th' place.

SEBASTIAN
This were enough
Now to affright a fool forever from thee,
When 'tis the music that I love thee for.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] There's a boy spoils all again.

MOLL
Believe it, sir, I am not of that disdainful temper, but I could
love you faithfully.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] A pox on you for that word! I like you not now:
Y'are a cunning roarer; I see that already.

MOLL
But sleep upon this once more, sir, you may chance shift a mind
tomorrow. Be not too hasty to wrong yourself; never while you
live, sir, take a wife running: many have run out at heels that
have done 't. You see, sir, I speak against myself, and if every
woman would deal with their suitor so honestly, poor younger brothers
would not be so often gull'd with old cozening widows that turn
o'er all their wealth in trust to some kinsman and make the poor
gentleman work hard for a pension. Fare you well, sir.

SEBASTIAN
Nay, prithee, one word more.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] How do I wrong this girl: she puts him off still!

SIR ALEXANDER
But thou goest falser: not thy father's cares
Can keep thee right. When that insensible work
Obeys the workman's art, lets off the hour
And stops again when time is satisfied;
But thou runn'st on, and judgment, thy main wheel,
Beats by all stops, as if the work would break
Begun with long pains for a minute's ruin,
Much like a suffering man brought up with care
At last bequeath'd to shame and a short prayer.

SEBASTIAN
I taste you bitterer than I can deserve, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER
Who has bewitch['d] thee, son? What devil or drug
Hath wrought upon the weakness of thy blood
And betray'd all her hopes to ruinous folly?
Oh, wake from drowsy and enchanted shame,
Wherein thy soul sits with a golden dream,
Flatter'd and poisoned! I am old, my son;
Oh, let me prevail quickly,
For I have weightier business of mine own
Than to chide thee: I must not to my grave
As a drunkard to his bed, whereon he lies
Only to sleep and never cares to rise.
Let me dispatch in time; come no more near her.

SEBASTIAN
Not honestly? Not in the way of marriage?

SIR ALEXANDER
What, sayst thou marriage? In what place, the sessions-house?
And who shall give the bride, prithee, an indictment?

SEBASTIAN
Sir, now ye take part with the world to wrong her.

SIR ALEXANDER
Why, wouldst thou fain marry to be pointed at?
Alas, the number's great; do not o'erburden 't.
Why, as good marry a beacon on a hill,
Which all the country fix their eyes upon
As her thy folly dotes on. If thou long'st
To have the story of thy infamous fortunes,
Serve for discourse in ordinaries and taverns,
Th' art in the way; or to confound thy name,
Keep on, thou canst not miss it; or to strike
Thy wretched father to untimely coldness,
Keep the left hand still, it will bring thee to't.
Yet if no tears wrung from thy father's eyes,
Nor sighs that fly in sparkles from his sorrows,
Had power to alter what is willful in thee,
Methinks her very name should fright thee from her
And never trouble me.

SEBASTIAN
Why is the name of Moll so fatal, sir?

SIR ALEXANDER
[Marry], one, sir, where suspect is ent'red,
For seek all London from one end to t'other
More whores of that name than of any ten other.

SEBASTIAN
What's that to her? Let those blush for themselves.
Can any guilt in others condemn her?
I've vow'd to love her: let all storms oppose me
That ever beat against the breast of man,
Nothing but death's black tempest shall divide us.

SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, folly that can dote on nought but shame!

SEBASTIAN
Put case a wanton itch runs through one name
More than another: is that name the worse
Where honesty sits possess'd in't? It should rather
Appear more excellent and deserve more praise
When through foul mists a brightness it can raise.
Why, there are of the devil's honest gentlemen,
And well descended, keep an open house,
And some a' th' good man's that are arrant knaves.
He hates unworthily that by rote contemns,
For the name neither saves nor yet condemns.
And for her honesty, I have made such proof an't
In several forms, so nearly watch'd her ways,
I will maintain that strict against an army,
Excepting you my father. Here's her worst:
Sh' has a bold spirit that mingles with mankind,
But nothing else comes near it, and oftentimes
Through her apparel somewhat shames her birth,
But she is loose in nothing but in mirth.
Would all Molls were no worse.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] This way I toil in vain and give but aim
To infamy and ruin. He will fall;
My blessing cannot stay him: all my joys
Stand at the brink of a devouring flood
And will be willfully swallowed, willfully,
But why so vain? Let all these tears be lost:
I'll pursue her to shame, and so all's cross'd.

Exit Sir Alexander.

SEBASTIAN
He is gone with some strange purpose, whose effect
Will hurt me little if he shoot so wide,
To think I love so blindly. I but feed
His heart to this match to draw on th' other,
Wherein my joy sits with a full wish crown'd,
Only his mood excepted, which must change
By opposite policies, courses indirect:
Plain dealing in this world takes no effect.
This mad girl I'll acquaint with my intent,
Get her assistance, make my fortunes known:
'Twixt lovers' hearts, she's a fit instrument
And has the art to help them to their own
By her advice, for in that craft she's wise:
My love and I may meet, spite of all spies.

COACHMAN
My life for yours and baffle 'em too, sir. Why, they are the
same jades, believe it, sir, that have drawn all your famous whores
to Ware.

LAXTON
Nay then, they know their business; they need no more instructions.

COACHMAN
They're so us'd to such journeys, sir, I never use whip to 'em,
for if they catch but the scent of a wench once, they run like
devils.

Exit Coachman with his whip.

LAXTON
Fine Cerberus: that rogue will have the start of a thousand ones,
for whilst others trot afoot, he'll ride prancing to hell upon
a coach-horse. Stay, 'tis now about the hour of her appointment,
but yet I see her not.

The clock strikes three.

Hark, what's this? One, two, three, three by the clock at Savoy:
this is the hour, and Gray's Inn Fields the place. She swore
she'd meet me. Ha, yonder's two Inns a' Court men with one wench,
but that's not she; they walk toward Islington out of my way.
I see none yet dress'd like her: I must look for a shag ruff,
a frieze jerkin, a short sword, and safeguard, or I get none.
Why, Moll, prithee make haste or the coachman will curse us anon.

MOLL
To teach thy base thoughts manners: th' art one of those
That thinks each woman thy fond, flexible whore
If she but cast a liberal eye upon thee;
Turn back her head, she's thine, or amongst company,
By chance drink first to thee. Then she's quite gone;
There's no means to help her, nay, for a need,
Wilt swear unto thy credulous fellow lechers
That th' art more in favour with a lady
At first sight than her monkey all her lifetime.
How many of our sex by such as thou
Have their good thoughts paid with a blasted name
That never deserved loosely, or did trip
In path of whoredom beyond cup and lip?
But for the stain of conscience and of soul,
Better had women fall into the hands
Of an act silent than a bragging nothing.
There's no mercy in't. What durst move you, sir,
To think me whorish, a name which I'd tear out
From the high German's throat if it lay ledger there
To dispatch privy slanders against me?
In thee I defy all men, their worst hates
And their best flatteries, all their golden witchcrafts
With which they entangle the poor spirits of fools,
Distressed needlewomen, and trade-fall'n wives.
Fish that must needs bite or themselves be bitten,
Such hungry things as these may soon be took
With a worm fast'ned on a golden hook:
Those are the lecher's food, his prey; he watches
For quarrelling wedlocks, and poor shifting sisters:
'Tis the best fish he takes. But why, good fisherman,
Am I thought meat for you, that never yet
Had angling rod cast towards me? 'Cause, you'll say,
I'm given to sport, I'm often merry, jest.
Had mirth no kindred in the world but lust?
Oh, shame take all her friends then! But howe'er
Thou and the baser world censure my life,
I'll send 'em word by thee, and write so much
Upon thy breast, 'cause thou shalt bear 't in mind:
Tell them 'twere base to yield where I have conquer'd.
I scorn to prostitute myself to a man,
I that can prostitute a man to me:
And so I greet thee.

LAXTON
Hear me!

MOLL
Would the spirits
Of all my [slanderers] were clasp'd in thine
That I might vex an army at one time!

They fight.

LAXTON
I do repent me! Hold!

MOLL
You'll die the better Christian then.

LAXTON
I do confess I have wrong'd thee, Moll.

MOLL
Confession is but poor amends for wrong,
Unless a rope would follow.

LAXTON
I ask thee pardon.

MOLL
I'm your hir'd whore, sir.

LAXTON
I yield both purse and body!

MOLL
Both are mine and now at my disposing.

LAXTON
Spare my life!

MOLL
I scorn to strike thee basely.

LAXTON
Spoke like a noble girl, i'faith! [Aside] Heart, I think
I fight with a familiar or the ghost of a fencer! Sh' has wounded
me gallantly. Call you this a lecherous [voyage]? Here's blood
would have serv'd me this seven year in broken heads and cut fingers,
and it now runs all out together. Pox a' the Three Pigeons!
I would the coach were here now to carry me to the chirurgeon's.

Exit Laxton.

MOLL
If I could meet my enemies one by one thus,
I might make pretty shift with 'em in time
And make 'em know she that has wit and spirit
May scorn to live beholding to her body for meat
Or for apparel like your common dame
That makes shame get her clothes to cover shame.
Base is that mind that kneels unto her body,
As if a husband stood in awe on's wife:
My spirit shall be mistress of this house
As long as I have time in't.

Enter Trapdoor.

[Aside] Oh,
Here comes my man that would be: 'tis his hour.
Faith, a good well-set fellow, if his spirit
Be answerable to his umbles. He walks stiff,
But whether he will stand to't stiffly, there's the point;
H'as a good calf for't, and ye shall have many a woman
Choose him she means to [make] her head by his calf.
I do not know their tricks in't. Faith, he seems
A man without; I'll try what he is within.

TRAPDOOR
[Aside] She told me Gray's Inn Fields 'twixt three and
four.
I'll fit her mistress-ship with a piece of service!
I'm hir'd to rid the town of one mad girl.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What a pruing keep you; I think the baby would have a teat, it
kyes so. Pray be not so fond of me: leave your city humours;
I'm vex'd at you to see how like a calf you come bleating after
me.

GALLIPOT
Nay, honey Pru. How does your rising up before all the table
show? And flinging from my friends so uncivilly? Fie, Pru, fie,
come!

GALLIPOT
Ha, ha, 'tis such a wasp! It does me good now to have her [sting]
me, little rogue.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Now fie, how you vex me! I cannot abide these [apron] husbands,
such cotqueans: you overdo your things; they become you scurvily.

GALLIPOT
[Aside] Upon my life, she breeds! Heaven knows how I have
strain'd myself to please her, night and day. I wonder why we
citizens should get children so fretful and untoward in the breeding,
their fathers being for the most part as gentle as milch-kine.--Shall
I leave thee, my Pru?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Fie, fie, fie.

GALLIPOT
Thou shalt not be vex'd no more, pretty kind rogue: take no cold,
sweet Pru.

Exit Gallipot.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
As your wit has done. [Taking out a letter] Now, Master
Laxton, show your head. What news from you? Would any husband
suspect that a woman crying, "Buy any scurvygrass" should
bring love letters amongst her herbs to his wife? Pretty trick,
fine conveyance! Had jealousy a thousand eyes, a silly woman
with scurvygrass blinds them all.
Laxton, with bays
Crown I thy wit for this: it deserves praise.
This makes me affect thee more; this proves thee wise.
'Lack what poor shift is love forc'd to devise?
To th' point:

She reads the letter.

"Oh, sweet creature,"--a sweet beginning--"pardon
my long absence, for thou shalt shortly be possessed with my presence.
Though Demophon was false to Phyllis, I will be to thee as Pan-da-rus
was to Cres-sida; tho' Aeneas made an ass of Dido, I will die
to thee ere I do so. Oh, sweet'st creature, make much of me,
for no man beneath the silver moon shall make more of a woman
than I do of thee. Furnish me therefore with thirty pounds; you
must do it of necessity for me: I languish till I see some comfort
come from thee, protesting not to die in thy debt, but rather
to live so, as hitherto I have and will.

Thy true Laxton ever."

Alas, poor gentleman! Troth, I pity him.
How shall I raise this money? Thirty pound?
'Tis thirty sure, a 3 before an O;
I know his threes too well. My childbed linen?
Shall I pawn that for him? Then if my mark
Be known, I am undone; it may be thought
My husband's bankrout. Which way shall I turn?
Laxton, what with my own fears and thy wants,
I'm as a needle 'twixt two adamants.

Enter Master Gallipot hastily.

GALLIPOT
Nay, nay, wife, the women are all up! [Aside] Ha! How,
reading a' letters? I smell a goose, a couple of capons, and
a gammon of bacon from her mother out of the country, I hold my
life.--Steal, steal!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, beshrew your heart!

GALLIPOT
What letter's that?
I'll see't.

She tears the letter.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, would thou hadst no eyes to see
The downfall of me and thyself: I'm forever,
Forever I'm undone!

GALLIPOT
What ails my Pru?
What paper's that thou tear'st?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Would I could tear
My very heart in pieces, for my soul
Lies on the rack of shame that tortures me
Beyond a woman's suffering.

GALLIPOT
What means this?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Had you no other vengeance to throw down
But even in height of all my joys--

GALLIPOT
Dear woman!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
When the full sea of pleasure and content
Seem'd to flow over me--

GALLIPOT
As thou desirest to keep
Me out of bedlam, tell what troubles thee?
Is not thy child at nurse fall'n sick, or dead?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Would all we had were swallowed in the waves,
Rather than both should be the scorn of slaves.

GALLIPOT
I'm at my wits' end!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, my dear husband,
Where once I thought myself a fixed star
Plac'd only in the heaven of thine arms,
I fear now I shall prove a wanderer.
Oh, Laxton, Laxton, is it then my fate
To be by thee o'erthrown?

GALLIPOT
I shall run mad for company then. Speak to me:
I'm Gallipot thy husband. Pru, why, Pru!
Art sick in conscience for some villainous deed
Thou wert about to act? Didst mean to rob me?
Tush, I forgive thee! Hast thou on my bed
Thrust my soft pillow under another's head?
I'll wink at all faults, Pru; 'las, that's no more
Than what some neighbours near thee have done before.
Sweet honey Pru, what's that Laxton?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh!

GALLIPOT
Out with him!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, he's born to be my undoer!
This hand which thou call'st thine to him was given;
To him was I made sure i' th' sight of heaven.

GALLIPOT
I never heard this thunder.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Yes, yes, before
I was to thee contracted, to him I swore,
Since last I saw him twelve months three times told
The moon hath drawn through her light silver bow,
For o'er the seas he went, and it was said,
But rumour lies, that he in France was dead.
But he's alive, oh, he's alive! He sent
That letter to me, which in rage I rent,
Swearing with oaths most damnably to have me,
Or tear me from this bosom. Oh, heavens save me!

GALLIPOT
My heart will break! Sham'd and undone forever!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
So black a day poor wretch went o'er thee never.

GALLIPOT
If thou shouldst wrastle with him at the law,
Th' art sure to fall: no odd sleight, no prevention.
I'll tell him th' art with child.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Umh.

GALLIPOT
Or give out
One of my men was ta'en a-bed with thee.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Umh, umh.

GALLIPOT
Before I lose thee, my dear Pru,
I'll drive it to that push.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Worse, and worse still:
You embrace a mischief to prevent an ill.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh me, heavens grant it would!
Yet now my senses are set more in tune,
He writ, as I remember in his letter,
That he in riding up and down had spent
Ere he could find me thirty pounds: send that;
Stand not on thirty with him.

GALLIPOT
Forty, Pru;
Say thou the word 'tis done. We venture lives
For wealth, but must do more to keep our wives.
Thirty or forty, Pru?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Thirty, good sweet;
Of an ill bargain let's save what we can.
I'll pay it him with my tears: he was a man
When first I knew him of a meek spirit;
All goodness is not yet dried up, I hope.

GALLIPOT
He shall have thirty pound; let that stop all:
Love's sweets taste best when we have drunk down gall.

LAXTON
'Ud's light, the tide's against me! A pox of your pothecaryship!
Oh, for some glister to set him going! 'Tis one of Hercules'
labours to tread one of these city hens because their cocks are
still crowing over them; there's no turning tail here, I must
on.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, pick no quarrels, gentle sir! My husband
Is not a man of weapon as you are;
He knows all: I have op'ned all before him
Concerning you.

LAXTON
Zounds, has she shown my letters!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Suppose my case were yours, what would you do
At such a pinch, such batteries, such assaults
Of father, mother, kindred, to dissolve
The knot you tied, and to be bound to him?
How could you shift this storm off?

LAXTON
If I know, hang me.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Besides a story of your death was read
Each minute to me.

LAXTON
[Aside] What a pox means this riddling?

GALLIPOT
Be wise, sir; let not you and I be toss'd
On lawyers' pens: they have sharp nibs and draw
Men's very heart-blood from them. What need you, sir,
To beat the drum of my wife's infamy,
And call your friends together, sir, to prove
Your [precontract] when sh' has confess'd it?

LAXTON
Umh, sir,
Has she confess'd it?

GALLIPOT
Sh' has, faith, to me, sir,
Upon your letter sending.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I have, I have.

LAXTON
[Aside] If I let this iron cool, call me slave.--
Do you hear, you dame Prudence? Think'st thou, vile woman,
I'll take these blows and wink?

GALLIPOT
Alas, sir,
You make her flesh to tremble; fright her not.
She shall do reason and what's fit.

LAXTON
I'll have thee,
Wert thou more common than an hospital
And more diseased.

GALLIPOT
But one word, good sir.

LAXTON
So, sir?

GALLIPOT
I married her, have [lain] with her, and got
Two children on her body; think but on that.
Have you so beggarly an appetite,
When I upon a dainty dish have fed,
To dine upon my scraps, my leavings? Ha, sir?
Do I come near you [now], sir?

GALLIPOT
Then pray, sir, wear not her, for she's a garment
So fitting for my body, I'm loath
Another should put it on; you will undo both.
Your letter, as she said, complain'd you had spent
In quest of her some thirty pound: I'll pay it.
Shall that, sir, stop this gap up 'twixt you two?

LAXTON
Well, if I swallow this wrong, let her thank you;
The money being paid, sir, I am gone.
Farewell, oh women! Happy's he trusts none.

SIR ALEXANDER
Out with your tale, Sir Davy, to Sir Adam;
A knave is in mine eye deep in my debt.

SIR DAVY
Nay, if he be a knave, sir, hold him fast.

[Sir Alexander takes Trapdoor aside.]

SIR ALEXANDER
Speak softly. What egg is there hatching now?

TRAPDOOR
A duck's egg, sir, a duck that has eaten a frog; I have crack'd
the shell and some villainy or other will peep out presently.
The duck that sits is the bouncing ramp, that roaring girl my
mistress, the drake that must tread is your son Sebastian.

TRAPDOOR
Close to your son: your son and her moon will be in conjunction,
if all almanacs lie not. Her black safeguard is turn'd into a
deep slop, the holes of her upper body to button holes, her waistcoat
to a doublet, her placket to the ancient seat of a codpiece, and
you shall take 'em both with standing collars.

SIR ALEXANDER
Art sure of this?

TRAPDOOR
As every throng is sure of a pickpocket, as sure as a whore is
of the clients all Michaelmas Term, and of the pox after the term.

SIR ALEXANDER
Worse still and worse:
He lays on me his shame, I on him my curse.

SIR DAVY
My son Jack Dapper then shall run with him,
All in one pasture.

SIR ADAM
Proves your son bad too, sir?

SIR DAVY
As villainy can make him. Your Sebastian
Dotes but on one drab, mine on a thousand,
A noise of fiddlers, tobacco, wine and a whore,
A mercer that will let him take up more,
Dice, and a water-spaniel with a duck: oh,
Bring him a-bed with these! When his purse jingles,
Roaring boys follow at's tale, fencers and ningles,
Beasts Adam ne'er gave name to: these horse-leeches suck
My son; he being drawn dry, they all live on smoke.

SIR ALEXANDER
Tobacco?

SIR DAVY
Right, but I have in my brain
A windmill going that shall grind to dust
The follies of my son, and make him wise
Or a stark fool; pray lend me your advise.

[SIR ALEXANDER, SIR ADAM]
That shall you, good Sir Davy.

SIR DAVY
Here's the springe
I ha' set to catch this woodcock in: an action
In a false name, unknown to him, is ent'red
I' th' counter to arrest Jack Dapper.

SIR ALEXANDER
Ay, yet knows not how to mend it.
Bedlam cures not more madmen in a year
Than one of the counters does; men pay more dear
There for their wit than anywhere; a counter:
Why, 'tis an university! Who not sees?
As scholars there, so here men take degrees
And follow the same studies all alike.
Scholars learn first logic and rhetoric.
So does a prisoner: with fine honey'd speech
At's first coming in he doth persuade, beseech,
He may be lodg'd with one that is not itchy,
To lie in a clean chamber, in sheets not lousy;
But when he has no money, then does he try
By subtle logic and quaint sophistry
To make the keepers trust him.

SIR ADAM
Say they do?

SIR ALEXANDER
Then he's a graduate.

SIR DAVY
Say they trust him not?

SIR ALEXANDER
Then is he held a freshman and a sot,
And never shall commence, but being still barr'd
Be expuls'd from the master's side to th' twopenny ward,
Or else i' th' hole be plac'd.

SIR ALEXANDER
When money being the aim
He can dispute with his hard creditors' hearts
And get out clear, he's then a Master of Arts.
Sir Davy, send your son to Wood Street College:
A gentleman can nowhere get more knowledge.

SIR DAVY
There gallants study hard.

SIR ALEXANDER
True, to get money.

SIR DAVY
Lies by th' heels, i'faith; thanks, thanks. I ha' sent
For a couple of bears shall paw him.

SIR DAVY
An excellent name for a sergeant, Curtilax.
Sergeants indeed are weapons of the law
When prodigal ruffians far in debt are grown:
Should not you cut them, citizens were o'erthrown.
Thou dwell'st hereby in Holborn, Curtilax?

CURTILAX
We are as other men are, sir. I cannot see but he who makes a
show of honesty and religion, if his claws can fasten to his liking,
he draws blood. All that live in the world are but great fish
and little fish, and feed upon one another: some eat up whole
men; a sergeant cares but for the shoulder of a man. They call
us knaves and curs, but many times he that sets us on worries
more lambs one year than we do in seven.

SIR DAVY
Spoke like a noble Cerberus. Is the action ent'red?

HANGER
His name is ent'red in the book of unbelievers.

SIR DAVY
What book's that?

CURTILAX
The book where all prisoners' names stand, and not one amongst
forty when he comes in believes to come out in haste.

SIR DAVY
Be as dogged to him as your office allows you to be.

[CURTILAX, HANGER]
Oh, sir!

SIR DAVY
You know the unthrift Jack Dapper?

CURTILAX
Ay, ay, sir. That gull? As well as I know my yeoman.

SIR DAVY
And you know his father too, Sir Davy Dapper?

CURTILAX
As damn'd a usurer as ever was among Jews; if he were sure his
father's skin would yield him any money, he would when he dies
[flay] it off, and sell it to cover drums for children at Bartholomew
Fair.

SIR DAVY
[Aside] What toads are these to spit poison on a man to
his face!--Do you see, my honest rascals? Yonder greyhound is
the dog he hunts with: out of that tavern Jack Dapper will sally.
Sa, sa; give the counter, on, set upon him.

GULL
No, by my troth, sir. To lose all your money, yet have false
dice of your own! Why, 'tis as I saw a great fellow used t'other
day: he had a fair sword and buckler, and yet a butcherdry-beathim with a cudgel.

TRAPDOOR
Being a stout girl, perhaps she'll desire pressing,
Then all the weight must lie upon her belly.

SIR ALEXANDER
Belly or back I care not so I've one.

TRAPDOOR
You're of my mind for that, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER
Hang up my ruff band with the diamond at it;
It may be she'll like that best.

TRAPDOOR
[Aside] It's well for her that she must have her choice; he thinks
nothing too good for her.--If you hold on this mind a little longer,
it shall be the first work I do to turn thief myself; would do
a man good to be hang'd when he is so well provided for.

SIR ALEXANDER
So, well said; all hangs well, would she hung so too:
The sight would please me more than all their [glisterings].
Oh, that my mysteries to such straits should run
That I must rob myself to bless my son!

SEBASTIAN
Thou hast done me a kind office, without touch
Either of sin or shame; our loves are honest.

MOLL
I'd scorn to make such shift to bring you together else.

SEBASTIAN
Now have I time and opportunity
Without all fear to bid thee welcome, love.

Kiss.

MARY
Never with more desire and harder venture.

MOLL
How strange this shows, one man to kiss another.

SEBASTIAN
I'd kiss such men to choose, Moll;
Methinks a woman's lip tastes well in a doublet.

MOLL
Many an old madam has the better fortune then,
Whose breaths grew stale before the fashion came;
If that will help 'em, as you think 'twill do,
They'll learn in time to pluck on the hose too.

SEBASTIAN
The older they wax, Moll--troth, I speak seriously--
As some have a conceit their drink tastes better
In an outlandish cup than in our own,
So methinks every kiss she gives me now
In this strange form is worth a pair of two.
Here we are safe and furthest from the eye
Of all suspicion: this is my [father's] chamber,
Upon which floor he never steps till night;
Here he mistrusts me not, nor I his coming.
At mine own chamber he still pries unto me;
My freedom is not there at mine own finding,
Still check'd and curb'd: here he shall miss his purpose.

MOLL
And what's your business now you have your mind, sir?
At your great suit I promis'd you to come;
I pitied her for name's sake, that a Moll
Should be so cross'd in love when there's so many
That owes nine lays apiece, and not so little.
My tailor fitted her. How like you his work?

SEBASTIAN
So well no art can mend it for this purpose,
But to thy wit and help we're chief in debt
And must live still beholding.

MARY
I've heard her much commended, sir, for one that was ne'er taught.

MOLL
I'm much beholding to 'em. Well, since you'll needs put us together,
sir, I'll play my part as well as I can; it shall ne'er be said
I came into a gentleman's chamber and let his instrument hang
by the walls.

SEBASTIAN
Why, well said, Moll! I'faith, it had been a shame for that gentleman
then that would have let it hung still and ne'er off'red thee
it.

MOLL
There it should have been still then for Moll, for though the
world judge impudently of me, I ne'er came into that chamber yet
where I took down the instrument myself.

MOLL
Push, I ever fall asleep and think not of 'em, sir, and thus I
dream.

SEBASTIAN
Prithee let's hear thy dream, Moll.

The song.

MOLL. I dream there is a mistress,
And she lays out the money;
She goes unto her sisters,
She never comes at any.

Enter Sir Alexander behind them.

She says she went to th' Burse for patterns;
You shall find her at Saint Kathern's,
And comes home with never a penny.

SEBASTIAN
That's a free mistress, faith.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ay, ay, ay, like her that sings it, one of thine
own choosing.

MOLL
But shall I dream again?

Here comes a wench will brave ye,
Her courage was so great:
She lay with one o' the navy,
Her husband lying i' the Fleet,
Yet oft with him she cavill'd.
I wonder what she ails.
Her husband's ship lay gravell'd,
When hers could hoise up sails;
Yet she began like all my foes
To call whore first, for so do those:
A pox of all false tails!

SEBASTIAN
Marry, amen say I.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] So say I too.

MOLL
Hang up the viol now, sir: all this while I was in a dream; one
shall lie rudely then, but being awake, I keep my legs together.
A watch: what's a' clock here?

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] No, wilt not be. Am I alone so wretched
That nothing takes? I'll put him to his plunge for't.

SEBASTIAN
Life, here he comes! [To Moll, giving her money] Sir,
I beseech you take it;
Your way of teaching does so much content me,
I'll make it four pound. Here's forty shillings, sir.
I think I name it right. [Aside to her] Help me, good
Moll.--
Forty in hand.

MOLL
Sir, you shall pardon me;
I have more of the mean'st scholar I can teach.
This pays me more than you have off'red yet.

SEBASTIAN
At the next quarter
When I receive the means my father 'lows me,
You shall have t'other forty.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] This were well now,
Were 't to a man whose sorrows had blind eyes,
But mine behold his follies and untruths
With two clear glasses.--How now?

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ay, I believe thee: thou hast so bewitch'd my son,
No care will mend the work that thou hast done.
I have bethought myself, since my art fails,
I'll make her policy the art to trap her.
Here are four angels mark'd with holes in them,
Fit for his crack'd companions; gold he will give her:
These will I make induction to her ruin
And rid shame from my house, grief from my heart.--
Here, son, in what you take content and pleasure,
Want shall not curb you. [Giving him money] Pay the gentleman
His latter half in gold.

SEBASTIAN
I thank you, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Oh, may the operation an't end three:
In her, life, shame in him, and grief in me.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
He has by often beating into me made me believe that my husband
kept a whore.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Very good.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Swore to me that my husband this very morning went in a boat with
a tilt over it to the Three Pigeons at Brainford, and his punk
with him under his tilt.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
That were wholesome.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
I believ'd it, fell a-swearing at him, cursing of harlots, made
me ready to hoise up sail, and be there as soon as he.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
So, so.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
And for that voyage Goshawk comes hither incontinently. But,
sirrah, this water-spaniel dives after no duck but me; his hope
is having me at Brainford to make me cry quack.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Art sure of it?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Sure of it! My poor innocent Openwork came in as I was poking
my ruff; presently hit I him i' the teeth with the Three Pigeons:
he forswore all, I up and opened all, and now stands he in a shop
hard by like a musket on a rest, to hit Goshawk i' the eye when
he comes to fetch me to the boat.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Such another lame gelding offered to carry me through thick and
thin--Laxton, sirrah--but I am rid of him now.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Happy is the woman can be rid of 'em all. 'Las, what are your
whisking gallants to our husbands, weigh 'em rightly man for man?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Troth, mere shallow things.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Idle simple things, running heads, and yet let 'em run over us
never so fast, we shopkeepers, when all's done, are sure to have
'em in our purse-nets at length, and when they are in, Lord, what
simple animals they are!

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Nay, are you ready? A little thing, you see, makes us ready.

GOSHAWK
Us? Why, must she make one i' the voyage?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, by any means. Do I know how my husband will handle me?

GOSHAWK
[Aside] Foot, how shall I find water to keep these two
mills going?--Well, since you'll needs be clapp'd under hatches,
if I sail not with you both till all split, hang me up at the
mainyard and duck me. [Aside] It's but liquoring them
both soundly, and then you shall see their cork heels fly up high,
like two swans when their tails are above water and their long
necks under water, diving to catch gudgeons.--Come, come, oars
stand ready, the tide's with us: on with those false faces. Blow
winds and thou shalt take thy husband casting out his net to catch
fresh salmon at Brainford.

OPENWORK
How now? Sweet Master Goshawk, none more welcome;
I have wanted your embracements: when friends meet,
The music of the spheres sounds not more sweet
Than does their conference. Who is this? Rosamond?
Wife? How now, sister?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
May not we cover our bare faces with masks
As well as you cover your bald heads with hats?

OPENWORK
No masks. Why, th' are thieves to beauty, that rob eyes
Of admiration in which true love lies.
Why are masks worn? Why good, or why desired,
Unless by their gay covers wits are fired
To read the vild'st looks? Many bad faces,
Because rich gems are treasured up in cases,
Pass by their privilege current, but as caves
Dam misers' gold, so masks are beauty's graves.
Men ne'er meet women with such muffled eyes
But they curse her that first did masks devise,
And swear it was some beldam. Come, off with 't.

OPENWORK
Swear true:
Is there a rogue so low damn'd? A second Judas?
A common hangman? Cutting a man's throat?
Does it to his face? Bite me behind my back?
A cur dog? Swear if you know this hell-hound!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
In truth I do.

OPENWORK
His name?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Not for the world,
To have you to stab him.

GOSHAWK
[Aside] Oh, brave girls: worth gold!

OPENWORK
A word, honest Master Goshawk.

Draw out his sword.

GOSHAWK
What do you mean, sir?

OPENWORK
Keep off, and if the devil can give a name
To this new fury, holla it through my ear,
Or wrap it up in some hid character.
I'll ride to Oxford and watch out mine eyes,
But I'll hear the brazen head speak; or else
Show me but one hair of his head or beard,
That I may sample it. If the fiend I meet
In mine own house, I'll kill him, [in] the street,
Or at the church door: there, 'cause he seeks to untie
The knot God fastens, he deserves to die.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
My husband titles him.

OPENWORK
Master Goshawk, pray, sir,
Swear to me that you know him or know him not.
Who makes me at Brainford to take up a petticoat
Beside my wife's?

GOSHAWK
By heaven that man I know not!

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Come, come, you lie.

GOSHAWK
[Aside to her] Will you not have all out?
By heaven I know no man beneath the moon
Should do you wrong, but if I had his name,
I'd print it in text letters.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Print thine own then:
Didst not thou swear to me he kept his whore?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
And that in sinful Brainford they would commit
That which our lips did water at, sir, ha?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Thou spider, that hast woven thy cunning web
In mine own house t' ensnare me! Hast not thou
Suck'd nourishment even underneath this roof
And turn'd it all to poison? Spitting it
On thy friend's face, my husband, he as 'twere sleeping?
Only to leave him ugly to mine eyes
That they might glance on thee?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Speak: are these lies?

GOSHAWK
Mine own shame me confounds.

OPENWORK
No more; he's stung.
Who'd think that in one body there could dwell
Deformity and beauty, heaven and hell?
Goodness I see is but outside: we all set
In rings of gold stones that be [counterfeit].
I thought you none.

GOSHAWK
Pardon me.

OPENWORK
Truth, I do.
This blemish grows in nature not in you,
For man's creation stick[s] even moles in scorn
On fairest cheeks. Wife, nothing is perfect born.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
I thought you had been born perfect.

OPENWORK
What's this whole world but a gilt, rotten pill?
For at the heart lies the old chore still.
I'll tell you, Master Goshawk, in your eye
I have seen wanton fire, and then to try
The soundness of my judgment, I told you
I kept a whore, made you believe 'twas true,
Only to feel how your pulse beat, but find
The world can hardly yield a perfect friend.
Come, come, a trick of youth, and 'tis forgiven;
This rub put by, our love shall run more even.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Husband, I pluck'd,
When he had tempted me to think well of him,
[Gelt] feathers from thy wings to make him fly
More lofty.

GALLIPOT
A' the top of you, wife. On.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
He, having wasted them, comes now for more,
Using me as a ruffian doth his whore,
Whose sin keeps him in breath. By heaven I vow
Thy bed he never wrong'd, more than he does now.

GALLIPOT
My bed? Ha, ha, like enough: a shop-board will serve
To have a cuckold's coat cut out upon.
Of that we'll talk hereafter. Y'are a villain.

LAXTON
Hear me but speak, sir, you shall find me none.

OMNES
Pray, sir, be patient and hear him.

GALLIPOT
I am muzzled
For biting, sir; use me how you will.

LAXTON
The first hour that your wife was in my eye,
Myself with other gentlemen sitting by
In your shop tasting smoke, and speech being used,
That men who have fairest wives are most abused
And hardly scap'd the horn, your wife maintain'd
That only such spots in city dames were stain'd,
Justly, but by men's slanders: for her own part,
She vow'd that you had so much of her heart;
No man by all his wit, by any wile
Never so fine spun, should yourself beguile
Of what in her was yours.

GALLIPOT
Yet Pru, 'tis well.
Play out your game at Irish, sir. Who wins?

LAXTON
I scorn'd one woman thus should brave all men
And, which more vex'd me, a she-citizen.
Therefore I laid siege to her; out she held,
Gave many a brave repulse, and me compell'd
With shame to sound retreat to my hot lust.
Then seeing all base desires rak'd up in dust,
And that to tempt her modest ears, I swore
Ne'er to presume again. She said her eye
Would ever give me welcome honestly,
And since I was a gentleman, if it run low,
She would my state relieve, not to o'erthrow
Your own and hers; did so. Then seeing I wrought
Upon her meekness, me she set at nought,
And yet to try if I could turn that tide,
You see what stream I strove with. But, sir, I swear
By heaven, and by those hopes men lay up there,
I neither have nor had a base intent
To wrong your bed; what's done is merriment.
Your gold I pay back with this interest:
When I had most power to do't, I wrong'd you least.

GALLIPOT
If this no gullery be, sir--

OMNES
No, no, on my life!

GALLIPOT
Then, sir, I am beholden not to you, wife,
But, Master Laxton, to your want of doing ill,
Which it seems you have not. Gentlemen,
Tarry and dine here all.

OPENWORK
Brother, we have a jest
As good as yours to furnish out a feast.

GALLIPOT
We'll crown our table with it. Wife, brag no more
Of holding out: who most brags is most whore.

JACK
But prithee, Master Captain Jack, be plain and perspicuous with
me: was it your Meg of Westminster's courage that rescued me from
the Poultry puttocks indeed?

MOLL
The valour of my wit, I ensure you, sir, fetch'd you off bravely
when you were i' the forlorn hope among those desperates. Sir
Beauteous Ganymede here and Sir Thomas Long heard that cuckoo,
my man Trapdoor, sing the note of your ransom from captivity.

MOLL
Marry, to lay trains of villainy to blow up my life; I smelt the
powder, spied what linstock gave fire to shoot against the poor
captain of the galley-foist, and away slid I my man, like a shovel-board
shilling. He struts up and down the suburbs, I think, and eats
up whores, feeds upon a bawd's garbage.

SIR THOMAS
Sirrah Jack Dapper.

JACK
What sayst Tom Long?

SIR THOMAS
Thou hadst a sweet-fac'd boy, hail-fellow with thee to your little
Gull. How is he spent?

JACK
Troth, I whistled the poor little buzzard off a' my fist, because
when he waited upon me at the ordinaries, the gallants hit me
i' the teeth still, and said I look'd like a painted alderman's
tomb, and the boy at my elbow like a death's head. Sirrah Jack,
Moll.

TRAPDOOR
Good your honours and worships, enlarge the ears of commiseration
and let the sound of a hoarse military organ-pipe, penetrate your
pitiful bowels to extract out of them so many small drops of silver,
as may give a hard straw-bed lodging to a couple of maim'd soldiers.

MOLL
Not a cross, Sir Beauteous. You base rogues, I have taken measure
of you better than a tailor can, and I'll fit you as you, monster
with one eye, have fitted me.

TRAPDOOR
Your worship will not abuse a soldier?

MOLL
Soldier? Thou deserv'st to be hang'd up by that tongue which
dishonours so noble a profession. Soldier, you skeldering varlet?
Hold, stand, there should be a trapdoor hereabouts.

Pull off his patch.

TRAPDOOR
The balls of these glaziers of mine, mine eyes, shall be shot
up and down in any hot piece of service for my invincible mistress.

JACK
I did not think there had been such knavery in black patches,
as now I see.

MOLL
Oh, sir, he hath been brought up in the Isle of Dogs, and can
both fawn like a spaniel and bite like a mastiff as he finds occasion.

LORD NOLAND
What are you, sirrah? A bird of this feather too?

TEARCAT
A man beat'n from the wars, sir.

SIR THOMAS
I think so, for you never stood to fight.

DAPPER
What's thy name, fellow soldier?

TEARCAT
I am call'd by those that have seen my valour, Tearcat.

OMNES
Tearcat?

MOLL
A mere whip-jack, and that is, in the commonwealth of rogues,
a slave that can talk of sea-fight, name all your chief pirates,
discover more countries to you than either the Dutch, Spanish,
French, or English ever found out, yet indeed all his service
is by land, and that is to rob a fair or some such venturous exploit.
Tearcat! Foot, sirrah, I have your name now! I remember me
in my book of hornershorns for the thumb, you know how.

TEARCAT
No indeed, Captain Moll, for I know you by sight: I am no such
nipping Christian, but a maunderer upon on the pad, I confess,
and meeting with honest Trapdoor here, whom you had cashier'd
from bearing arms, out at elbows under your colours, I instructed
him in the rudiments of roguery, and by my map made him sail over
any country you can name, so that now he can maunder better then
myself.

JACK
So then, Trapdoor, thou art turn'd soldier now.

TRAPDOOR
Alas, sir, now there's no wars, 'tis the safest course of life
I could take.

MOLL
I hope then you can cant, for by your cudgels, you, sirrah, are
an upright man.

TRAPDOOR
As any walks the highway, I assure you.

MOLL
And Tearcat, what are you? A wild rogue, an angler, or a ruffler?

JACK
The grating of ten new cartwheels and the gruntling of five hundred
hogs coming from Romford market cannot make a worse noise than
this canting language does in my ears. Pray, my Lord Noland,
let's give these soldiers their pay.

SIR BEAUTEOUS
Agreed, and let them march.

LORD NOLAND
[Giving her money] Here, Moll.

MOLL
Now I see that you are stall'd to the rogue and are not ashamed
of your professions. [Giving Tearcat and Trapdoor the money]
Look you, my Lord Noland here and these gentlemen bestows upon
you two two boards and a half, that's two shillings sixpence.

MOLL
Troth, my lord, only a praise of good drink, the only milk which
these wild beasts love to suck, and thus it was:
A rich cup of wine,
Oh, it is juice divine,
More wholesome for the head
Than meat, drink, or bread
To fill my drunken pate!
With that, I'd sit up late;
By the heels would I lie,
Under a lousy hedge die.
Let a slave have a pull
At my whore, so I be full
Of that precious liquor--
And a parcel of such stuff, my lord, not worth the opening.

Enter a Cutpurse very gallant, with four or five men after
him, one with a wand.

LORD NOLAND
What gallant comes yonder?

SIR THOMAS
Mass, I think I know him: 'tis one of Cumberland.

FIRST CUTPURSE
Shall we venture to shuffle in amongst yon heap of gallants and
strike?

SECOND CUTPURSE
'Tis a question whether there be any silver shells amongst them
for all their satin outsides.

OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Let's try.

MOLL
Pox on him! A gallant? Shadow me, I know him: 'tis one that
cumbers the land indeed; if he swim near to the shore of any of
your pockets, look to your purses.

OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Is't possible?

MOLL
This brave fellow is no better than a foist.

OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Foist? What's that?

MOLL
A diver with two fingers, a pickpocket: all his train study the
figging law, that's to say, cutting of purses and foisting. One
of them is a nip; I took him once i' the twopenny gallery at the
Fortune. Then there's a cloyer, or snap, that dogs any new brother
in that trade, and snaps will have half in any booty. He with
the wand is both a stale, whose office is to face a man i' the
streets whilst shells are drawn by another, and then with his
black conjuring rod in his hand, he, by the nimbleness of his
eye and juggling-stick, will in cheaping a piece of plate at a
goldsmith's stall, make four or five rings mount from the top
of his caduceus, and, as if it were at leap-frog, they skip into
his hand presently.

SECOND CUTPURSE
Zounds, we are smok'd!

OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Ha?

SECOND CUTPURSE
We are boil'd. Pox on her! See, Moll, the roaring drab.

FIRST CUTPURSE
A synagogue shall be call'd, Mistress Mary; disgrace me not.
Pacus palabros, I will conjure for you. Farewell.

[Exeunt Cutpurses.]

MOLL
Did not I tell you, my lord?

LORD NOLAND
I wonder how thou cam'st to the knowledge of these nasty villains.

SIR THOMAS
And why do the foul mouths of the world call thee Moll Cutpurse?
A name, methinks, damn'd and odious.

MOLL
Dare any step forth to my face and say,
"I have ta'en thee doing so, Moll," I must confess,
In younger days, when I was apt to stray,
I have sat amongst such adders, seen their stings
As any here might, and in full playhouses
Watch'd their quick-diving hands to bring to shame
Such rogues, and in that stream met an ill name.
When next, my lord, you spy any one of those,
So he be in his art a scholar, question him,
Tempt him with gold to open the large book
Of his close villainies, and you yourself shall cant
Better than poor Moll can, and know more laws
Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers,
With all the devil's black guard, than it is fit
Should be discovered to a noble wit.
I know they have their orders, offices,
Circuits and circles unto which they are bound
To raise their own damnation in.

JACK
How dost thou know it?

MOLL
As you do: I show it you, they to me show it.
Suppose, my lord, you were in Venice.

LORD NOLAND
Well.

MOLL
If some Italian pander there would tell
All the close tricks of courtesans, would not you
Hearken to such a fellow?

LORD NOLAND
Yes.

MOLL
And here,
Being come from Venice, to a friend most dear
That were to travel thither, you would proclaim
Your knowledge in those villainies to save
Your friend from their quick danger. Must you have
A black, ill name because ill things you know?
Good troth, my lord, I am made Moll Cutpurse so.
How many are whores in small ruffs and still looks!
How many chaste whose names fill slander's books!
Were all men cuckolds, whom gallants in their scorns
Call so, we should not walk for goring horns.
Perhaps for my mad going some reprove me:
I please myself and care not else who loves me.

OMNES
A brave mind, Moll, i'faith.

SIR THOMAS
Come, my lord, shall's to the ordinary?

LORD NOLAND
Ay, 'tis noon sure.

MOLL
Good my lord, let not my name condemn me to you or to the world.
A fencer I hope may be call'd a coward: is he so for that? If
all that have ill names in London were to be whipp'd and to pay
but twelvepence apiece to the beadle, I would rather have his
office than a constable's.

SIR GUY
Sir Alexander,
You're well met and most rightly served:
My daughter was a scorn to you.

SIR ALEXANDER
Say not so, sir.

SIR GUY
A very abject she, poor gentlewoman;
Your house [has] been dishonoured. Give you joy, sir,
Of your son's gaskin-bride; you'll be a grandfather shortly
To a fine crew of roaring sons and daughters:
'Twill help to stock the suburbs passing well, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, play not with the miseries of my heart!
Wounds should be dress'd and heal'd, not vex'd or left
Wide open to the anguish of the patient,
And scornful air let in: rather let pity
And advice charitably help to refresh 'em.

SIR GUY
Who'd place his charity so unworthily
Like one that gives alms to a cursing beggar?
Had I but found one spark of goodness in you
Toward my deserving child, which then grew fond
Of your son's virtues, I had eased you now;
But I perceive both fire of youth and goodness
Are rak'd up in the ashes of your age,
Else no such shame should have come near your house,
Nor such ignoble sorrow touch your heart.

SIR ALEXANDER
If not for worth, for pity's sake, assist me.

GREENWIT
You urge a thing past sense. How can he help you?
All his assistance is as frail as ours,
Full as uncertain. Where's the place that holds 'em?
One brings us water-news; then comes another
With a full-charg'd mouth, like a culverin's voice,
And he reports the Tower. Whose sounds are truest?

SIR GUY
Th' are nearer than you think for, yet more close
Than if they were further off.

SIR ALEXANDER
How am I lost
In these distractions!

SIR GUY
For your speeches, gentlemen,
In taxing me for rashness, 'fore you all
I will engage my state to half his wealth,
Nay, to his son's revenues, which are less,
And yet nothing at all till they come from him,
That I could, if my will stuck to my power,
Prevent this marriage yet, nay, banish her
Forever from his thoughts, much more his arms.

SIR ALEXANDER
Slack not this goodness, though you heap upon me
Mountains of malice and revenge hereafter:
I'd willingly resign up half my state to him,
So he would marry the mean'st drudge I hire.

GREENWIT
He talks impossibilities, and you believe 'em.

SIR GUY
I talk no more than I know how to finish;
My fortunes else are his that dares stake with me.
The poor young gentleman I love and pity,
And to keep shame from him, because the spring
Of his affection was my daughter's first
Till his frown blasted all, do but estate him
In those possessions which your love and care
Once pointed out for him, that he may have room
To entertain fortunes of noble birth,
Where now his desperate wants casts him upon her;
And if I do not for his own sake chiefly
Rid him of this disease that now grows on him,
I'll forfeit my whole state before these gentlemen.

GREENWIT
Troth, but you shall not undertake such matches;
We'll persuade so much with you.

SIR ALEXANDER
Here's my ring;
He will believe this token. 'Fore these gentlemen
I will confirm it fully: all those lands
My first love 'lotted him he shall straight possess
In that refusal.

SIR GUY
If I change it not,
Change me into a beggar.

GREENWIT
Are you mad, sir?

SIR GUY
'Tis done.

GOSHAWK
Will you undo yourself by doing,
And show a prodigal trick in your old days?

SIR ALEXANDER
'Tis a match, gentlemen.

SIR GUY
Ay, ay, sir, ay.
I ask no favour, trust to you for none;
My hope rests in the goodness of your son.

SIR ALEXANDER
Curs'd be the time I laid his first love barren,
Willfully barren, that before this hour
Had sprung forth fruits of comfort and of honour!
He lov'd a virtuous gentlewoman.

Enter Moll [in man's clothes].

GOSHAWK
Life,
Here's Moll!

GREENWIT
Jack?

GOSHAWK
How dost thou, Jack?

MOLL
How dost thou, gallant?

SIR ALEXANDER
Impudence, where's my son?

MOLL
Weakness, go look him.

SIR ALEXANDER
Is this your wedding gown?

MOLL
The man talks monthly:
Hot broth and a dark chamber for the knight;
I see he'll be stark mad at our next meeting.

Exit Moll.

GOSHAWK
Why, sir, take comfort now, there's no such matter:
No priest will marry her, sir, for a woman
Whiles that shape's on, and it was never known
Two men were married and conjoin'd in one.
Your son hath made some shift to love another.

SIR ALEXANDER
Whate'er she be, she has my blessing with her.
May they be rich and fruitful, and receive
Like comfort to their issue as I take
In them; h'as pleas'd me now, marrying not this:
Through a whole world he could not choose amiss.

GREENWIT
Glad y'are so penitent for your former sin, sir.

GOSHAWK
Say he should take a wench with her smock-dowry,
No portion with her but her lips and arms?

SIR ALEXANDER
Why, who thrive better, sir? They have most blessing,
Though other have more wealth, and least repent:
Many that want most know the most content.

GREENWIT
Say he should marry a kind, youthful sinner?

SIR ALEXANDER
Age will quench that: any offence but theft
And drunkenness, nothing but death can wipe away;
Their sins are green even when their heads are grey.
Nay, I despair not now; my heart's cheer'd, gentlemen:
No face can come unfortunately to me.

Enter a Servant.

Now, sir, your news?

SERVANT
Your son with his fair bride
Is near at hand.

SIR ALEXANDER
Fair may their fortunes be!

GREENWIT
Now you're resolv'd, sir, it was never she?

SIR ALEXANDER
I find it in the music of my heart.

Enter Moll mask'd, in Sebastian's hand, and [Sir Guy] Fitzallard.

See where they come.

GOSHAWK
A proper lusty presence, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER
Now has he pleas'd me right: I always counsell'd him
To choose a goodly, personable creature;
Just of her pitch was my first wife his mother.

SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, my reviving shame! Is't I must live
To be struck blind? Be it the work of sorrow,
Before age take 't in hand.

SIR GUY
Darkness and death!
Have you deceiv'd me thus? Did I engage
My whole estate for this?

SIR ALEXANDER
You ask'd no favour,
And you shall find as little; since my comforts
Play false with me, I'll be as cruel to thee
As grief to fathers' hearts.

MOLL
Why, what's the matter with you,
'Less too much joy should make your age forgetful?
Are you too well, too happy?

SIR ALEXANDER
With a vengeance.

MOLL
Methinks you should be proud of such a daughter,
As good a man as your son.

SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, monstrous impudence!

MOLL
You had no note before, an unmark'd knight:
Now all the town will take regard on you,
And all your enemies fear you for my sake.
You may pass where you list through crowds most thick,
And come off bravely with your purse unpick'd;
You do not know the benefits I bring with me:
No cheat dares work upon you with thumb or knife
While y'ave a roaring girl to your son's wife.

SIR ALEXANDER
A devil rampant!

SIR GUY
Have you so much charity
Yet to release me of my last rash bargain,
And I'll give in your pledge.

SIR GUY
Content, bear witness all then
His are the lands, and so contention ends.
Here comes your son's bride, 'twixt two noble friends.

Enter the Lord Noland and Sir Beauteous Ganymede with Mary
Fitzallard between them, the citizens and their wives with them.

MOLL
Now are you gull'd as you would be, thank me for't:
I'd a forefinger in't.

SEBASTIAN
Forgive me, father;
Though there before your eyes my sorrow feigned,
This still was she for whom true love complain'd.

SIR ALEXANDER
Blessings eternal and the joys of angels
Begin your peace here to be sign'd in heaven.
How short my sleep of sorrow seems now to me
To this eternity of boundless comforts
That finds no want but utterance and expression!
My lord, your office here appears so honourably,
So full of ancient goodness, grace, and worthiness:
I never took more joy in sight of man
Than in your comfortable presence now.

LORD NOLAND
Nor I more delight in doing grace to virtue
Than in this worthy gentlewoman, your son's bride,
Noble Fitzallard's daughter, to whose honour
And modest fame I am a servant vow'd;
So is this knight.

SIR ALEXANDER
Your loves make my joys proud.
Bring forth those deeds of land my care laid ready,
And which, old knight, thy nobleness may challenge,
Join'd with thy daughter's virtues, whom I prize now
As dearly as that flesh I call mine own.
Forgive me, worthy gentlewoman, 'twas my blindness
When I rejected thee; I saw thee not:
Sorrow and willful rashness grew like films
Over the eyes of judgment, now so clear
I see the brightness of thy worth appear.

MARY
Duty and love may I deserve in those,
And all my wishes have a perfect close,

SIR ALEXANDER
That tongue can never err, the sound's so sweet.
Here, honest son, receive into thy hands
The keys of wealth, possession of those lands
Which my first care provided: they're thine own;
Heaven give thee a blessing with 'em. The best joys
That can in worldly shapes to man betide
Are fertile lands and a fair fruitful bride,
Of which I hope thou'rt sped.

MOLL
Condemn me? Troth, and you should, sir.
I'd make you seek out one to hang in my room;
I'd give you the slip at gallows and cozen the people.
Heard you this jest, my lord?

LORD NOLAND
What is it, Jack?

MOLL
He was in fear his son would marry me,
But never dreamt that I would ne'er agree.

LORD NOLAND
Why? Thou hadst a suitor once, Jack. When wilt marry?

MOLL
Who, I, my lord? I'll tell you when, i'faith.
When you shall hear
Gallants void from sergeants' fear,
Honesty and truth unsland'red,
Woman mann'd but never pand'red,
[Cheaters]booted but not coach'd,
Vessels older ere they're broach'd:
If my mind be then not varied,
Next day following I'll be married.

LORD NOLAND
This sounds like doomsday,

MOLL
Then were marriage best,
For if I should repent, I were soon at rest.

SIR ALEXANDER
In troth, th' art a good wench. I'm sorry now
The opinion was so hard I conceiv'd of thee;
Some wrongs I've done thee.

Enter Trapdoor.

TRAPDOOR
Is the wind there now?
'Tis time for me to kneel and confess first,
For fear it come too late and my brains feel it:
Upon my paws, I ask you pardon, mistress.

MOLL
Pardon? For what, sir? What has your rogueship done now?

TRAPDOOR
I have been from time to time hir'd to confound you
By this old gentleman.

MOLL
How!

TRAPDOOR
Pray forgive him,
But may I counsel you, you should never do't.
Many a snare to entrap your worship's life
Have I laid privily, chains, watches, jewels,
And when he saw nothing could mount you up,
Four hollow-hearted angels he then gave you
By which he meant to trap you, I to save you.

SIR ALEXANDER
To all which shame and grief in me cry guilty.
Forgive me; now I cast the world's eyes from me
And look upon thee freely with mine own:
I see the most of many wrongs before [thee],
Cast from the jaws of envy and her people,
And nothing foul but that. I'll never more
Condemn by common voice, for that's the whore
That deceives man's opinion, mocks his trust,
Cozens his love, and makes his heart unjust.

MOLL
Here be the angels, gentlemen; they were given me
As a musician. I pursue no pity;
Follow the law: and you can cuck me, spare not;
Hang up my viol by me, and I care not.

SIR ALEXANDER
So far I'm sorry I'll thrice double 'em
To make thy wrongs amends.
Come, worthy friends, my honourable lord,
Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and noble Fitzallard,
And you kind [gentlewomen], whose sparkling presence
Are glories set in marriage, beams of society,
For all your loves give lustre to my joys.
The happiness of this day shall be rememb'red
At the return of every smiling spring;
In my time now 'tis born, and may no sadness
Sit on the brows of men upon that day,
But as I am, so all go pleas'd away.

[Exeunt all but Moll.]

Epilogus

[MOLL]
A painter, having drawn with curious art
The picture of a woman, every part
Limn'd to the life, hung out the piece to sell.
People who pass'd along, viewing it well,
Gave several verdicts on it: some dispraised
The hair; some said the brows too high were raised;
Some hit her o'er the lips, mislik'd their colour;
Some wish'd her nose were shorter; some, the eyes fuller;
Others said roses on her cheeks should grow,
Swearing they look'd too pale; others cried no.
The workman still as fault was found did mend it
In hope to please all, but this work being ended
And hung open at stall, it was so vile,
So monstrous and so ugly, all men did smile
At the poor painter's folly. Such we doubt
Is this our comedy. Some perhaps do flout
The plot, saying, "'Tis too thin, too weak, too mean;"
Some for the person will revile the scene,
And wonder that a creature of her being
Should be the subject of a poet, seeing
In the world's eye none weighs so light; others look
For all those base tricks publish'd in a book,
Foul as his brains they flow'd from, of cutpurse[s],
Of nips and foists, nasty, obscene discourses,
As full of lies, as empty of worth or wit,
For any honest ear or eye unfit. And thus,
If we to every brain that's humourous
Should fashion scenes, we with the painter shall
In striving to please all please none at all.
Yet for such faults as either the writers' wit
Or negligence of the actors do commit,
Both crave your pardons; if what both have done
Cannot full pay your expectation,
The Roaring Girl herself some few days hence
Shall on this stage give larger recompense,
Which mirth that you may share in herself does woo you,
And craves this sign: your hands to beckon her to you.

[Exit.]

FINIS

The Roaring Girl, the final dramatic collaboration between
Middleton and Thomas Dekker, first appeared in quarto in 1611.
David Lake's textual analyses of both authors' works has confirmed
the date of composition as later rather than earlier in the first
decade of 1600, and he conjectures the date to be 1608. However,
P. A. Mulholland ["The Date of The Roaring Girl,"
RES 28 (1977)], citing allusions to contemporary events,
which I include in the glossary below, maintains a later date
of the spring of 1611, which I believe is more likely. Lake and
others divide the shares as Dekker having written I, III.ii-iii,
IV.ii, V.i, and Middleton II, III.i, IV.i, V.ii, a roughly even
division, although some scenes are probably not solely from one
author's pen. Dekker is undoubtedly the author of the canting
scene: the usages closely parallel his contemporary Bellman
of London and Lanthorn and Candlelight tracts. Editions
of The Roaring Girl include Dyce's of 1840, Bullen's of
1885, Andor Gomme's for the New Mermaids Series (1976), and Fredson
Bowers's in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker (1953-61),
with Introductions, Notes and Commentaries by Cyrus Hoy
(1980).

The title of the play derives from the riotous gallants of London,
known as "roaring boys," whose penchant for machismo
quarreling was parodied by Middleton and Rowley in A Fair Quarrel,
and by Jonson in The Alchemist. The title character is
based upon Mary Frith, the real Moll Cutpurse, whose notorious
exploits tested the patience of proper society and often brought
her before the court. Accounts of these exploits were variously
recorded, and they include wearing men's clothes, appearing on
the stage, drinking, swearing, making "immodest and lascivious
speeches," prostitution, pick-pocketing, forgery, and highway
robbery. A full rap sheet indeed but as the prologue, epilogue,
and epistle to the reader clearly demonstrate, Dekker and Middleton
were sympathetic to her, and through Moll offer, if not an apologia,
at least some well-needed positive public relations. T. S. Eliot
observed that the character of Moll is the one exquisite jewel
in the crown of a rather mediocre play; without a doubt, she is
thoroughly engaging. The loose and episodic structure of the
play, in fact, allows Dekker and Middleton to showcase her various
talents: she sings, she fights, she rescues Jack Dapper from the
clutches of the law; she is just as comfortable with lords and
gentlemen as with the thieves whose cant she speaks and over whom
she has some authority. Moll's character is also amazingly well-rounded
in the Forsterian sense: Dekker and Middleton take her beyond
a presentation of the mere spectacle and her iconic status in
the contemporary culture. We not only learn the "facts"
of her past, but we also hear her heart and mind in many candid
reactions to social prejudice and condemnation. It is certainly
the best comic female role in the Middleton canon, and few comic
female roles of the time are its equal.

Illustration: A portrait of Moll Frith from the prose tract The
Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith, Commonly Called Moll Cutpurse,
Exactly Collected and Now Published for the Delight and Recreation
of All Merry-Disposed Persons (1662). Bullen gives a precise
synopsis.
"My case is alter'd, I must work for my living.":
According to the Consistory of London Correction Book,
Mary Frith appeared before the court on 27 January 1612 for misdemeanors
and was subsequently incarcerated, a fact which Hoy believes informs
this quotation that appears beside her picture on the quarto title-page:
"At the time of the publication of the play, Mary Frith apparently
was beating hemp in Bridewell, in the manner of the loose women
Dekker had shown undergoing correction in that place some half-a-dozen
years before, in the final scene of The Honest Whore, Part
Two." As Gomme notes, the first half of the quotation is
proverbial, and gave title to Jonson's comedy of 1597.

crop-doublet: A richly padded, short doublet, which went
out of fashion about thirty years earlier.

bombasted: Bombast was cotton wool stuffing used to pad
out clothes and make the wearer look muscular, but also took on
this figurative and more familiar usage; cf. Your Five Gallants
III.iii, Day's The Isle of Gulls Ind., Satiromastix
V.ii.

doublet fell: "Few garments underwent so many changes
as did the doublet. From the straight-bodied, full, long-skirted
doublet of the reign of Henry VIII evolved the 'Peas-cod' or Dutch
'doublets with great belly and small skirt', so familiar from
the seventies...The peas-cod front...disappeared by 1610, and
the doublet became form-fitting--but was worn over a stiff lining--with
a small waist decorated by points" (Linthicum, Costume
in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, as cited
by Hoy).

single plots: not characteristic of contemporary plays;
as Gomme suggests, Middleton is probably being ironic.

statute: Although there was no specific statute that forbade
women from wearing men's clothing, the issue seems to have been
covered in a general sumptuary law, i.e., a law meant to curtail
extravagance.

codpiece point: the lace which fastened the cod-piece,
a bagged appendage to the front of the close-fitting hose or breeches;
cf. The Puritan I.iii.

galley room: The tiring room at the Fortune Theater was
an extension of the upper gallery; Middleton's remark indicates
copies of plays were stored there.

vast theatre: The Fortune Theater on Golden Lane in Cripplegate
(built 1600, burnt 1621, rebuilt 1623, finally destroyed 1662)
was 53 feet square inside (80 outside), and had three tiers of
galleries. To the right, the reconstruction, based on the surviving contract,
is by W. H. Godfrey, and the engraving of
the theater in its last days is by T. H. Shepherd (1811). It
was occupied by the Lord Admiral's Men (which became Prince Henry's
Men in 1603) under the management of Philip Henslowe and Edward
Alleyn, his son-in-law and a leading acting of the Admiral's Men.

transcendent: Normally, the best possible definition would
be "transcending or rising high above the ordinary rank of
persons, i.e., given the privilege of meeting him privately even
though she is ostensibly of the class of tradesmen." However,
Gomme's inclination toward an obscure bawdy connotation is correct,
because we ultimately learn that Neatfoot thinks she is Sebastian's
whore. In his affected (and probably condescending and self-righteous)
way, Neatfoot is saying she will rise, or become pregnant, a common
Jacobean pun.

As a horse runs...one path still: i.e., like a horse turning
a millstone that often stumbles but always keeps to the same path,
Sebastian will often seem to be unfaithful but will remain constant;
cf. Northward Ho! I.iii.

grey groat: A groat was fourpence. "Not worth a grey
groat" was proverbial.

galleries: "Sir Alexander's collection suggests a
parody of the great collections which began to be made in Elizabeth's
reign, and of which Lord Lunley's at Nonesuch Palace, Surrey,
was an already famous example. Pictures were sometimes fixed
to the wall so close together as to make a mosaic covering the
wall entirely. The display hints at the kind of spectacular stage
effects which were then becoming popular in masques and is a kind
of visual diagram of the action of the play" (Gomme).

heartstrings: The heart was supposedly braced with strings
(tendons or nerves) that could be broken with emotional stress.
The concept was often likened to the strings of a musical instrument,
where there was a handy pun on "fret": 1) stress, worry,
2) a bar of gut, wood, or metal on the fingerboard used to regulate
the fingering. Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy x, The Revenger's Tragedy I.i, Hamlet
III.ii, Henry VIII III.ii, Chapman's Monsieur D'Olive.

Fortune: A detail from the title-page of Robert Record's
The Caste of Knowledge, 1556 showing the Wheel of Fortune.
Click on the image for the complete title-page (266 KB), which
illustrates the various concepts associated with the goddess Fortune,
in contrast to Urania, or Wisdom, on the left. Fortune stands
unstably upon a ball, while Wisdom stands firmly on a block.
She is blindfolded and turns her wheel, which can as easily bring
someone wealth one day as take it all away the next day, for "she
is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation"
(Henry V III.vi); by contrast, Wisdom holds a compass (representing
rational knowledge) and the Sphere of Destiny. Fortune is illuminated
by the moon, a symbol of irrationality and changefulness, and
Wisdom is illuminated by the sun, a symbol of reason and stability:
the inscription ends, "Though earth do honour Fortune's ball,/And
battles blind her wheel advance,/The heavens to Fortune are not
thrall:/These spheres surmount all Fortune's chance."

read o'er his cards: Bowers emends to "cares,"
but Gomme's gloss of "reckon up his position" is correct:
he looks at the cards Fortune has dealt him and realizes his situation
is not all bad.

more tongues in his head than some have teeth: ostensibly
alluding to Sebastian's knowledge of languages, but double-tongued
= deceitful (cf. II.ii "two-leav'd tongues"), and cf.
the proverb "the tongue walks where the teeth speed not,"
quoted in Dekker's The Gull's Horn-Book.

It is a thing...than woman: This passage was lifted by
Nathan Field for his Amends for Ladies (1612), for a scene
in which Moll unsuccessfully attempts to corrupt the virtuous
heroine.

two shadows to one shape: i.e., a both a man's and woman's
shadow, although Gomme suggests that "by witchcraft she has
stolen a shadow and so would have power over another's soul.
The devil was normally held to cast no shadow."

blazing star: According to medieval astrology, the stars
that controlled men's fate were fixed and incorruptible; on the
other hand, meteors, which are sublunary, were corruptible and
subject to change, and heralded or were provoked by evil events
on earth. Gomme seems to support Bald's conjecture that this
is a reference to Halley's comet, which had reached its perihelion
in late November 1607, but allusions to this cosmology were quite
frequent: cf. Mistress Gallipot's "fixed star" of III.ii,
as well as The Changeling V.iii, The Revenger's Tragedy
V.i & V.iii, The Bloody Banquet V.ii, Julius Caesar
I.iii & II.i.

naughty pack: a term of approach, used for both males and
females, almost always occurring in this compound form; cf. Westward
Ho! II.i, Northward Ho! II.ii.

rank: row Like many market scenes of the time, this scene
is highly visual and includes many sight gags; in an effort to
bridge this gap, I've made explicit some implicit stage directions
to give a sense of the action.

Indian pot-herbs: "Pot-herbs are simply herbs boiled
in a pot; perhaps a misunderstanding of how tobacco is prepared"
(Gomme). The statement is not so much a misunderstanding in Laxton's
knowledge of tobacco as an inconsistency in the background of
the wives, for it is Mistress Openwork who later claims to have
been a lady's serving-woman, a "gentlewoman born." On
the other hand, it's entirely possible that neither of them came
from a higher social class, and that both merely make such a claim
as psychological leverage against their husbands (i.e., marrying
below their station) and to impress the gallants Laxton and Goshawk.

May take up an ell of pure smock: An ell is a measure of
length (in England, 45 inches), chiefly used in measuring cloth;
cf. The Old Law IV.i, 2 Honest Whore II.ii, Anything
for a Quiet Life II.ii. A smock was a woman's undergarment.

naked boy in a vial: "Steeven's suggestion--'I suppose
he means an abortion preserved in spirits'--seems irrelevant and
incredible; the point is presumably the visibility of nakedness
seen through clear glass. Naked boys is a popular name for the
meadow saffron which flowers after its leaves have withered; but
the phrase also occurs in The Alchemist (III.iv.80-1) in
such a way as to suggest catamite [page]" (Gomme). In this
context, the "naked boy" sounds like an allusion to
Cupid, but this does not help to explain the relevance of "vial."
"Viol," which has its own sexual innuendo (cf. IV.i),
is also spelled "vial" in Q, but this doesn't make the
image any clearer.

Draw in a third man: Gomme edits to "draw in a thread,
man" and explains, "'Third' is occasionally found for
'thread', and 'thrid', for which 'third' could be a compositor's
slip, quite commonly. But this is frankly a guess at a meaning
which I cannot find in Q as it stands. I suggest that Laxton
may be inviting Goshawk to draw in (= inhale) a thread of smoke;
or 'thread' may be a measure of tobacco as of yarn. But 'draw
in' can mean inveigle or take in, and also, it seems, to lay down
a stake at dice (cf. Michaelmas Term II.i)." It seems
clear to me that Laxton, returning after his aside, has found
Goshawk and Greenwit sharing a bowl--I assume the gallants have
been sampling Gallipot's various tobaccos--and asks to be a third;
Goshawk refuses, claiming that Laxton himself never shares.

stone riders: those who ride stone horses, or stallions;
there is possibly the stone/testicles pun that Laxton makes later
in this scene, hence stone riders might = womanizers, as Gomme
suggests

private stage's audience: included in this list of the
fashionable well-to-do because of the higher price of admission
at the private theaters, which were established to circumvent
the law that prohibited houses of public entertainment within
the city

safeguard: the outer petticoat worn over other clothes
to protect them from dirt, the usual riding dress for women; cf.
The Witch II.iii.

[GOSHAWK, GREENWIT]: Both. (Q); I have preferred
to be more specific here, and make a similar emendation in III.iii
for lines shared between Sir Alexander and Sir Adam, and Curtilax
and Hanger.

Mile End milksops: a favorite recreation spot for city-dwellers,
where apparently cakes and cream were available; the trained bands
that guarded the city exercised here. Cf. The Shoemakers'
Holiday I.i.

I send you for hollands...I take nothing: Gomme's gloss
is thorough: "A dazzling linguistic challenge. The first
pun seems to derive in particular from the brilliant wordplay
of 2 Henry IV II.ii, 21-2: 'the rest of thy low countries
have made a shift to eat up thy holland': 'low countries' (the
first half of the latter word was always suggestive: see Hamlet
III.ii.120) meant both the lower parts of the body and the stews
[brothels] (where Poins and supposedly Master Openwork beget bastards);
hence, similarly, 'holland', as well as, literally, linen--which
prompts 'shift' in the sense of chemise. And the seemingly innocent
shopkeeping talk win the second sentence conceals a complex obscenity:
'ware' was in regular use for the privates of either sex, but
especially of women (where it was commonly 'lady's ware') (cf.
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.i) [also cf. The Family
of Love II.i, No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's I.i &
III.i, The Witch I.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life
II.iv]. The burden, then, of Mistress Openwork's complaint is
that by a trick (a shift) she is left to make what shift she can
by handling her sexual parts (those next to her shift) herself:
a barren ('dead') activity, but she may as well stop offering
herself, for when she opens up her 'shop', nothing comes in."

spleen: The spleen was often regarded as the seat of passions
and/or impulsive behavior: in Renaissance psychology, an individual
had four basic "humours," or temperaments, which were
determined by the amount of their corresponding bodily fluids
secreted in the spleen. The four humours are choleric (anger)
derived from bile (as in The Revenger's Tragedy II.iii
and here), phlegmatic (cold torpor) from phlegm, sanguine (geniality)
from blood, and melancholy from black bile (as in The Revenger's
Tragedy IV.i, The Witch I.i). The spleen was also
held responsible for sexual desire (as in The Old Law III.ii,
Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii).

tread upon a worm, they say 'twill turn tail: proverbial,
meaning that even the lowliest of creatures will resent ill-treatment

Holborn: The area to the north of the Strand and northwest
of the old walled city, a place with an unsavory reputation, especially
toward the west end; it takes its name from the Holbourne, a tributary
of the Fleet. It was also the center of the legal profession,
and contained the Inns of Court (Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, the
Middle Temple, and the Inner Temple), as well as the Inns of Chancery;
because of their frequent reference in this play, I feel compelled
to cite Weinreb and Hibbert's The London Encyclopedia:
"By the middle of the 15th century the Inns [of Chancery]
had largely been taken over by resident students and solicitors
and attorneys and had become preparatory schools for students
wishing to be called to the Bar by the Inns of Court which had
managed to secure a degree of control over the Inns of Chancery.
By 1530 Furnival's and Thavies Inns had become affiliated to
Lincoln's Inn, while Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn looked to Gray's
Inn, and Clement's, Clifford's, and Lyon's Inns were affiliated
to the Inner Temple. After the destruction of the Strand Inn
in 1549, the Middle Temple had only one Inn of Chancery, namely
New Inn. Each Inn of Chancery normally comprised a Principal,
Ancients (Benchers) [magistrates] and Juniors or Companions (barristers
and students). Unlike the Inns of Court, the Inns of Chancery--also
styled 'Honourable Societies'--had no power to call students to
the Bar but in most other respects their constitutions were similar
to those of the Inns of Court. By 1600 eight Inns of Chancery
were in existence but, with the decline in the educational role
of these Inns, students were tending increasingly to enroll directly
in the Inns of Court. At the same time the attorney and solicitors,
who were being gradually excluded from the Inns of Court, took
over the Inns of Chancery." For references to various Inns,
also cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, The Puritan
I.iii, Your Five Gallants IV.ii, A Trick to Catch the
Old One I.iv.

Gray's Inn Fields: open fields to the north of Gray's Inn,
used as grounds for recreation but eventually frequented by petty
thieves

Saint Antling's bell: St. Antlings was another name for the Puritan church of St. Antholin, on Watling Street on the north
side of Budge Row. In 1599, the congregation of St. Antholin's
began sermons at 5 a.m., heralded by the chapel bells, much to
the frustration of the neighbors. Cf. the character Nicholas
St. Tantlings in The Puritan (specifically II.i for the
earliness of their sermons), Michaelmas Term V.i.

spital dealing: Spitals were originally houses for lepers
and victims of other diseases, but the term came a hospital specifically
for venereal disease; frequently alluded to in Middleton, e.g.,
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii & V.i.

[burr]: a broad ring of iron behind the handle of a tilting
lance; burgh (Q)

duck: i.e., a decoy; the use of spaniels in duck-hunting
was quite popular, and alluded to frequently by Dekker. Cf. The
Witch of Edmonton IV.i, Match Me in London III.ii,
The Noble Spanish Soldier II.ii, Marston's Histriomastix
II.

Hogsden: Hoxton, a northern suburb of London, a favorite
place for afternoon jaunts by Londoners

Spits in the dog's mouth: "The reason for this
action is obscure. Mr. T. R. Henn suggests that it may have been
a device to ensure that the dog memorized its master's scent;
he also informs me that he has known groundskeepers to spit on
a ferret after it has been muzzled to smooth down the fur ruffled
by the muzzled. Possibly the dog was similarly muzzled"
(Gomme). Hoy replies, "Perhaps so; but other evidence suggests
that the action betokens some odd sign of affection bestowed on
a pet. Cf. Jonson, Discoveries, lines 309-311: 'what hath
he done more, then a troublesome base curre? bark'd, and made
a noyse a farre off: had a foole, or two to spit in his mouth,
and cherish him with a musty bone?'" I tend to agree with Hoy; cf. The Witch of Edmonton IV.ii.

Parlous Pond: Parlous, or Perilous, Pond, so called because
of the numerous accidents there, was in Hoxton and visited by
many Londoners for both duck-hunting and swimming.

II.ii.

two-leav'd: two leaud (Q); "the primary sense intended
is the comparison of the tongue to the two hinged parts of a door
or gate" (Bowers)

hog-rubber: a term of contempt, probably derived from "hog-grubber,"
a sneak; cf. Bartholomew Fair V.iv, The Devil's Law-Case
IV.i.

pageant-bearer: Porters were employed to carry pageants,
or portable stages, for plays and other spectacles in the streets.

poor younger brothers...old cozening widows: i.e., one
who has not benefited by inheritance and must therefore be more
aggressive in marrying for money; cf. No Wit, No Help like
a Woman's III.ii.

sturgeon voyage: fishing-voyage for sturgeon; "The
point here, and in what follows, seems to be: don't chose [sic]
a wife as if you were going to be away from home and would never
have to live with her, or as if you were going to a barbaric country
where any female would do" (Hoy).

he that is sway'd...rusty clock: "A sardonic comment
on the old man's incapacity--once he is old and impotent he cannot
hope for sexual success, his spring is no longer taut, his action
is rusty, his rhythm erratic and weak--with a warning that the
young (those in their springtime) be not ruled by the dicta of
the elderly" (Gomme).

Ludgate: one of the eight gates in the Roman wall of ancient
London, built during the reign of King Lud in 66 BC and rebuilt
in 1586. It had a flat leaded roof but no clock; Gomme conjectures
Sebastian means St. Martin's Church. Ludgate is also mentioned
in The Puritan I.iii. Illustration: 1) Aldgate, 2) Bishopsgate,
3) Moorgate, 4) Cripplegate, 5) Aldersgate, 6) Newgate, 7) Ludgate,
8) Temple Bar; all but the last were demolished before the end
of the 18th century.

lets off the hour...time is satisfied: i.e., tolls the
hour, after which it stops

Marybone Park: "Until 1611 Marylebone Manor was crown
property: the gardens (ultimately incorporated into Regent's Park)
were said in A Fair Quarrel IV.iv to be suitable as a burial
ground for whores and panders because it was near Tyburn. The
point of Laxton's quip, however, is enriched by the linking of
a pun on Marybone (= marrow-bone) and park in the sense of 'the
female body as a domain where the lover may freely roam' (cf.
Venus and Adonis 231ff.)" (Gomme).

tufftaffety: Hoy cites Linthicum, p. 124: "Plain taffeta
was not rich enough for Elizabethan taste. It must be 'tufted',
i.e. woven with raised stripes of spots. These stripes, upon
being cut, left a pile like velvet, and, since the tufted parts
were always a different colour from the ground, beautiful colour
combinations were possible.... Tuft-taffeta was used for hats
for both men and women, and for men's hose, jerkins, cloaks, and
jackets." Sir Godfrey has a "taffety" hat in The
Puritan III.vi.

Savoy: the 13th-century palace reconstructed as a hospital
for the poor in 1505; in the late 16th century there were complaints
that criminals used it as a sanctuary from the law. Cf. The
Shoemakers' Holiday IV.iv. The illustration is from an 18th-century
engraving depicting the Savoy c. 1550.

Islington: one of the northern suburbs of London, another
favorite place of recreation

if they would keep...generation of a sergeant: if gallants
were as prompt paying the mercers' bills as they were meeting
their harlots, not even bankrupts would want to become sergeants,
because, would you know, that's why men become sheriff's officers,
i.e., they buy their way into a post in which they were likely
to be bribed or be able to keep some of the money for themselves

Three Pigeons: This inn in Brentford finally closed in
1916; I.ii of She Stoops to Conquer takes place here.
Cf. The Alchemist V.iv.

untruss a point: Untied one of the points that joined the
breeches to the doublet; Laxton believes she is beginning to undress.

racks: moves with the gait called a rack, in which the
horse raises both hooves on the same side at the same time

Win 'em and wear 'em!: a popular expression, a variation
of which is "Win her and wear her," referring to a bride;
cf. Much Ado about Nothing V.i, The Witch of Edmonton
I.ii & II.ii.

serve an execution on thee: 1) formally deliver a legal
writ, 2) inflict corporal punishment, 3) Gomme sees sexual innuendo:
"draw meant also to expose the penis (as a sword from a scabbard),
and an execution a performance of the sexual act (see Troilus
and Cressida III.ii.81, and cf. below, l. 118). Her threat
therefore is that she will geld him."

Demophon was false to Phyllis: "Demophon, son of Theseus,
en route back to Athens at the end of the Trojan War, met
and married Phyllis, a Bisaltian princess. When he tired of her
and announced his need to visit his mother in Athens, Phyllis
knew he would not return though he swore by all the gods that
he would be back within the year. On his departure, she gave
him a casket containing a charm, with instructions to open it
when he had abandoned all hope of returning to her. Instead of
going to Athens, Demophon settled in Cyprus. At the end of a
year, Phyllis committed suicide. In the same hour, Demophon was
prompted to look in the casket. The contents (their nature undisclosed
in the myth) maddened him. Galloping off insanely on his horse,
he was thrown and impaled on his own sword" (Hoy, referencing
Robert Graves, The Greek Myths). Gomme confuses this with
another tale involving a Thracian princess named Phyllis at the
time of the Trojan War.

Pan-da-rus was to Cres-sida: Dyce was first to observe
that the hyphens probably indicate the difficulty with which Mistress
Gallipot reads their names.

Aeneas made an ass of Dido: Returning from the Trojan War,
Aeneas was shipwrecked in Carthage and with whom Dido, the queen,
fell in love. He took advantage of her luxurious accommodations
until Jupiter prompted him to leave in order to found Rome; at
his departure, Dido killed herself.

I know his threes too well: Mistress Gallipot may merely
be making a comment on Laxton's handwriting, but this sounds like
a laugh-line, probably bawdy; I haven't been able to discover
any such significance, but it has been noted that Middleton, for
one, had a penchant for things coming in threes.

rubbers in a false alley: Rubbers, a singular form, was
the third game after the players had each won one game in a match
at bowls, a very popular sport often gambled upon. Aspects and
terminology of the game were often used by playwrights, often
with sexual overtones. Rubbing, a variation of rubbers, has obvious
sexual overtones; cf. Love's Labours Lost IV.i. Alleys,
or banks, were undulations in the open green which skilled bowlers
used when rolling their bowls; here, the false alley is Openwork's
supposed harlot. The bias was the impetus given to cause the
bowl to run obliquely. For various allusions to bowls, cf. Blurt,
Master Constable III.iii, If This Be Not a Good Play, the
Devil Is in It II.i, Old Fortunatus IV.i, Troilus
and Cressida III.ii, Satiromastix V.ii.

one of Hercules' labours: Hercules performed twelve nearly
impossible tasks as penance for killing his wife and children
in a fit of insanity.

pudding tobacco: tobacco compressed into rolls resembling
pudding, or sausage, but Laxton's question seems to be a threat,
probably implying that he is after Gallipot's pudding, or guts;
cf. Satiromastix I.ii.

counter: Counters (or compters) were debtors' prisons (in
London were the Poultry Counter, in which Dekker himself was once
imprisoned, and the Wood Street Counter); they were divided into
four wards. The master's was for the richest and provided the
best accommodations; then came the knight's, the twopenny, and
finally, for the poorest, the Hole, a name which Middleton frequently
takes advantage of for the bawdy pun. Cf. The Phoenix
II.iii & IV.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside V.iv, Your
Five Gallants I.i, Michaelmas Term III.iv, A Trick
to Catch the Old One IV.iii, The Puritan III.iv.

ware: merchandise (cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's
I.iii); as Gomme notes, the image is not very precise, unless
Sir Davy is thinking of the wares a peddler carries on his back,
just as these officers are always on the backs of gentlemen.

a sergeant cares but for the shoulder of a man: i.e., because
he claps the man on his shoulder to signify his arrest; cf. Michaelmas
Term III.iii, The Puritan III.iii, Satiromastix
IV.ii, Westward Ho! V.iv.

Bartholomew Fair: London's annual jamboree and chief national
cloth sale; it was opened by the Lord Mayor on St. Bartholomew's
Eve (August 23) and lasted a fortnight. Cf., of course, Jonson's
Bartholomew Fair.

Sa, sa: from the French "ça, ça" the exclamation
of fencers when delivering a thrust, here used as a hunting cry;
cf. King Lear IV.vi, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i,
Patient Grissil III.ii.

give the counter: "To hunt counter is to run a false
scent, or follow it in reverse direction; so here, turn him back.
There is doubtless a play on counter in the sense of prison"
(Gomme).

double your files, traverse your ground: literally, make
the ranks smaller by putting two files in one, and move from side
to side; it doesn't make sense, but Sir Davy's enthusiasm outstrips
his knowledge of military maneuvers.

Peeping?: The officers are peeking into the tavern to see
when Jack Dapper will come out.

two infected maltmen: "Presumably the cloaks would
hide the visible signs of an infection (but 'infected' could mean
tainted with crime). I do not know why maltmen...should be picked
on.... Maltmen appear in several proverbs, none of which seems
to tell on the present context" (Gomme). Cf. No Wit,
No Help like a Woman's III.i.

a butcher dry-beat him with a cudgel: As Mulholland conjectures,
an allusion to fray in February 1611 involving two butchers, Ralph
Brewin of St. Clement's Eastcheap and John Lynsey of St. Andrew's
Undershaft, accused on assaulting gentlemen patrons of The Fortune.

[MOLL]/Honest sergeant--/[TRAPDOOR]: In Q, the s.p. is
Both, and the word "sergeant" is "Seriant"
uncorrected, "Serieant" corrected. Gomme follows Dyce
and Bullen, and maintains the dual s.p. while emending to "servant".
On the other hand, Bowers prefers "sir", believing
Gull would not be addressed before his master, and that the compositor
mistakenly expanded the abbreviation "Sr". However,
I tend to think the Q reading is correct, and that Moll's and
Trapdoor's lines were fused to convey the fact that they are acting
in tandem and are speaking almost simultaneously. Splitting the
s.p. somewhat clarifies the action and helps a reader visualize
the trick: Moll accosts and in some way "hangs upon"
Curtilax (as he puts it) in order to expose him and divert his
attention, leaving it to Trapdoor to sound the alarm, thus allowing
Jack and Gull to escape. (Cf. similar "rescue" in The
Phoenix IV.iii, where a reveler physically prevents an arrest
by feigning a jest.)

call the viol an unmannerly instrument for a woman: viol
de gambo, a six-stringed violin which was gripped between the
player's thighs, with the sexual innuendo reinforced by the sexual
pun on "instrument"; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old
One I.i, Your Five Gallants II.i.

many a younger brother...wriggle in and out: "Suggestive
of a variation on that type of cony-catching known as 'The curbing
law' (whereby a thief angles with a hooked rod through an open
window for valuables that he has previously spotted)" (Hoy).

eel in a sandbag: Gomme glosses as "a proverbial phrase
used of things languishing for want of proper sustenance"
(as Cynthia's Revels II.v), but this doesn't seem to fit
the context.

roses: Large silk roses on shoes became fashionable at
the end of the 16th century; Moll wears them in the title-page
illustration. Cf. Webster's The White Devil V.iii, Chapman's
Caesar and Pompey II.i.

Bunhill: A street in London near Moorfields; on its east
side were the artillery fields, used for archery practice. Bullen
notes that in September 1623, Middleton received twenty marks
"for his service at the shooting on Bunhill, and at the Conduit
Head before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen."

Pimlico: The part of Hoxton from the corner of St. John's
Road and New North Road to Hoxton Street, which was called Pimlico
Walk; it was a place of resort and famous for fresh cakes and
ale. The name was later transferred to the area between the Thames
and St. James's Park. Cf. The Alchemist V.ii.

shag-ruff band...set in a cramp-ring: "One of a number
of ingenious depictions of the Jacobean gallant's head precisely
fixed in the centre of a stiffly elaborate ruff" (Hoy).
Cramp-rings were rings that supposed protected the wearer from
the cramp and epilepsy; they were hallowed by the king or queen
every year on Good Friday. Cf. The Alchemist IV.iii, The
White Devil III.i.

purse-nets: a bag-shaped net, the mouth of which can be
drawn together with cords, used especially for catching rabbits
or fish; cf. Pursenet the pickpocketing gallant in Your Five
Gallants, 2 The Honest Whore IV.ii.

[MISTRESS GALLIPOT/ ]: A line of Mistress Gallipot's
seems to have dropped out, for Mistress Openwork has two consecutive
speeches. "Then they hang the head" appears at the
top of the page, with the s.p. appearing as the catchphrase at
the bottom of the previous page. The sequence of dialogue doesn't
necessitate a line between the two speeches (i.e., Mistress Openwork's
second speech can follow the first without any disruption in sense),
but another line could easily be inserted. Three copies of (Q)
were reset, resulting in accidentals such as "Then they hang
head": Bowers conjectures that the printer realized Mistress
Gallipot's was missing, unlocked the frame, found it could not
be inserted, and the reset the type carelessly.

false faces: At one time fashionable only among the upper
classes, the wearing of masks to conceal a woman's identity had
worked its way down the social scale; by Restoration times, it
was mostly identified with prostitution. Cf. The Phoenix
I.v.

you'll eat of a cod's head of your own dressing: i.e.,
you'll catch yourself in your own net (cod's head = fool), but
also with sexual innuendo. Cf. Blurt, Master Constable
II.ii, 2 The Honest Whore V.ii.

Your worst: Gomme emends to "you're worsted",
i.e., you're blemished, but the Q reading can stand as an abbreviation
for "Do your worst," as Mistress Gallipot says later
this scene.

music of the spheres: in Ptolemaic astronomy, crystal spheres
revolved between earth and God's throne, a frequently occurring
image; cf., e.g., The Revenger's Tragedy II.i.

get you a-mumming: literally, a command to don a mask and
take part in a mummers' play, but Mistress Openwork is telling
him to be quiet (pun on mum)

Pass by their privilege current: i.e., most people, believing
the wearer to be beautiful beneath the mask, show her respect;
as Gomme notes, however, the prostitutes who wore masks did not
always pass current, as in Northward Ho! I.ii, 2 The
Honest Whore IV.i.

Dam: dambe (Q); both "dam" and "damn"
fit the context, and the pun is probably intentional, but the
OED records "dambe" as an erroneous form only of "dam."

as shopkeepers do their broid'red stuff: a popular charge
against tradesmen of keeping the light low to disguise shoddy
merchandise; cf. the draper Quomodo (whose henchmen are Falselight
and Shortyard) in Michaelmas Term, The Duchess of Malfi
I.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii. Hoy suggests emending
to "braided", i.e., goods that have changed color, or
faded.

two flags were advanc'd: an allusion to the raising of
flags at theaters to announce performances; cf. The Whore of
Babylon IV.i.

Westward Ho: the cry of the Thames watermen, but
obviously a direct reference to Dekker's and Webster's 1604 comedy,
which features citizens' wives and their gallants on a journey
westward to Brainford; also cf. Twelfth Night III.i.

toss/Me in a blanket: Blanketing, or tossing in a blanket,
was a form of punishment, the offender being tossed in the air
by blanket held by those below. There is the innuendo of love-making
in a blanket, as Openwork links baboon, a term of abuse, with
its proverbially lascivious nature. Cf. The Bloody Banquet
III.i, Satiromastix IV.iii.

stale: a lover or mistress whose devotion is turned into
ridicule for the amusement of rivals

Cold Harbour: Also called Cole Harbour, a mansion by the
Thames on Upper Thames Street, later tenements where debtors and
vagabonds found sanctuary from the law (a cole = a cheat, sharper);
it burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. Cf. A Trick to Catch
the Old One II.i, III.i, IV.i, Anything for a Quiet Life
II.iii (illustration), Westward Ho! IV.ii.

I'll ride to Oxford...brazen head speak: At Oxford, Friar
Bacon and Friar Bungay spent seven years constructing a brass
head in order to ask it if it was possible to build a brass wall
around England. Unfortunately, the head was left unattended when
it came time for the head to speak. The story would have been
familiar from The Famous History of Friar Bacon (earliest
extant copy dated 1627, but prob. c. 1550), and from Greene's
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594), the prologue and epilogue
of which Middleton wrote in 1602.

text letters: large or capital letters; cf. If This
Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It I.ii, The Whore
of Babylon V.ii.

snaffling: snuffling (var.); Greenwit is pretending to
have a cold in order to disguise his voice.

Rose Tavern: There were many London taverns bearing this
name. Hoy and Gomme think that the one near Temple Bar at the
corner of Thanet Place, frequented by lawyers, is the most attractive
candidate. Another Rose Tavern stood on Holborn Hill, from which
coaches departed for Brentford.

Bow Church: St. Mary's le Bow (Sancta Maria de Arcubus)
on the corner of Bread Street in West Cheap, the original site
of the Court of Arches, the chief court of the Archbishops of
Canterbury; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i.

a knack to know an honest man: An anonymous play by this
title was mentioned by Henslowe as being a new piece on 22 October
1594, between which date and 3 November 1596 twenty-one performances
by the Admiral's Men at the Rose on the Bankside are recorded;
it was printed in 1596. This and "a knack to know a knave"
were proverbial.

A very clean shift,/But able to make me lousy: with the
pun on shift = piece of clothing and lousy = lice-ridden

[Gelt]: Get (Q). This seems to be the best emendation,
= gold (from geld, i.e., money)

Meg of Westminster: There was another Moll, much like Moll
Frith, whose exploits are told in The Life and Pranks of Long
Meg of Westminster (1582); cf. Satiromastix III.i,
Jonson's The Fortunate Isles.

forlorn hope: Originally, a chosen body of fighters detached
to the front to begin the attack, or skirmishers, it came to mean
figuratively those in a desperate condition.

captain of the galley-foist: a term of contempt. A galley-foist
was a large barge with oars, used specifically as the one that
transported the Lord Mayor to Westminster to take his oath; cf.
2 The Honest Whore IV.iii.

from Venice to Roma...diverse others: "An amble indeed:
Vecchio is presumably Civitavecchia, Bononia and Bolonia are one
and the same, the modern Bologna, Romania is Romogna, Valteria
Volterra, Mountepulchena Montepulciano. Moll recognizes that
this is not proper journey but a string of names picked up at
hearsay" (Gomme).

Ick, mine here...mine here: Gomme provides a translation,
although "a 'translation' must be a matter partly of guesswork,
but it isn't entirely gibberish, though some words are hard to
identify. (I have supposed that, since Tearcat goes once into
Spanish, he may also include an attempt at a French word: it looks
as if Beasa may be baiser.) 'I, sir? I am the
ruffling Tearcat, the brave soldier, I have traveled through all
Holland: the rascal who gave more [than] a kiss and a word. I
beat him with blows on the head; pulled out thence a hundred thousand
devils, cheerfully, sir'."

Isle of Dogs: a peninsula in the Thames between Limehouse,
Greenwich, and Blackwall Reaches, so named because it was said
the king's hounds were kept there; it was a place of refuge from
creditors and the law, which led to frequent jokes. The lost
play The Isle of Dogs by Jonson and Nashe led to the theaters
being closed for two months. Cf. Satiromastix IV.i.

whip-jack: A "sort of nimble-fing'red knaves...who
talk of nothing but fights at sea, piracies, drownings and shipwracks,
travelling both in the shapes and names of mariners, with a counterfeit
license to beg from town to town.... The end of their land voyage
is to rob booths at fairs.... These whip-jacks will talk of the
Indies and of all countries that lie under heaven, but are indeed
no more but fresh-water soldiers" (The Bellman of London).

out at elbows: have a coat worn out at the elbows, to be
ragged, poor, in bad condition

cant: "It was necessary that a people, so fast increasing
and so daily practicing new and strange villainies, should borrow
to themselves a speech which, so near as thy could, none but themselves
could understand; and for that cause was this language, which
some call pedlar's French, invented.... This word canting seems
to be derived from the Latin verb canto, which signifies
in English to sing, or to make a sound with words, that's to say,
speak. And very aptly may canting take his derivation a cantando,
from singing, because amongst these beggarly consorts that can
play upon no better instruments, the language of canting is a
kind of music, and he that in such assemblies can cant best is
counted the best musician" (Lanthorn and Candlelight).
Some canting phrases have already been glossed above; Gomme provides
an excellent glossary, culled from works of Dekker and others
featuring canters' dictionaries.

upright man: The highest "office" in the thieves'
hierarchy; after him comes the ruffler, the angler, the rogue,
and finally the wild rogue.

kinchin mort in her slate at her back: "Kinchin morts
are girls of a year or two old, which the morts, their mothers,
carry at their backs in the slates, which in the canting tongue
are sheets" (The Bellman of London).

dell: "A dell is a young wench...but as yet not spoiled
of her maidenhead.... These dells are reserved as dishes for
the upright men, for none but they must have the first taste of
them" (The Bellman of London). A wild dell was one born
or begotten under a hedge.

gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat:
"By joining of two simples do they make almost all their
compounds. As for example, nab...is head, and nab-cheat
is a hat or a cap, which word cheat being coupled to other
words stands in very good stead and does excellent service"
(Lanthorn and Candlelight). Trapdoor therefore refers to a pig,
a cock or capon, and a duck.

ken: house. Like "cheat," this word is often
used in combination with other cant, e.g., a boozing ken is an
alehouse, and a few lines later a lib ken is a "sleep-house"
or lodging, and a stalling (or stuling) ken is a house for receiving
stolen goods.

queer cuffin: "The word cove or cofe
or cuffin signifies a man, a fellow, etc., but differs
something in his property according as it meets with other words,
for a gentleman is called a gentry cove or cofe,
a good fellow is a ben cofe, a churl is called a queer
cuffin...and in canting they term a Justice of the Peace (because
he punisheth them, belike) by no other name than by queer cuffin,
that's to say a churl or a naughty man" (Lanthorn and
Candlelight).

[MOLL, TEARCAT]: Tearcat's name appears as a s.p. at both
the third and tenth lines, and the s.d. The song appears in the
right-hand margin at the sixth; like Gomme, I think it is reasonable
to assume they join in a chorus here, as well as the last two
lines.

strike: Their cant here is best explained by this passage
from The Bellman of London, some of which is covered in
Moll's explanation below: "This figging law, like the body
of some monstrous and terrible beast, stands upon ten feet, or
rather lifts up proudly ten dragon-like heads, the names of which
are these, viz.:
He that cuts the purse is called the nip.
He that is half with him is the snap, or the cloyer.
The knife is called a cuttle-bung.
He that picks the pocket is called a foist.
He that faceth the man is the stale.
The taking of the purse is called drawing.
The spying of this villain is called smoking or boiling.
The purse is the bung.
The money the shells.
The act doing is called striking."

caduceus: Strictly defined, the wand carried by an ancient
Greek or Roman herald: one was carried by Mercury, the messenger
of the gods. Although it sounds as Moll is referring to a rod
on which the goldsmith kept his rings in the marketplace, Mercury
was also the god of thieves (cf. the inscription in the title-page of the 1662 prose tract above), and this stick may be similar to
a curber's hook (cf. IV.i). Cf. Troilus and Cressida II.iii.

last new play i' the Swan: Further evidence for the 1611
date of composition. The Swan produced no new plays from 1597/8
to 1611, featuring acrobatic performances and sports contests
instead. The Swan was used exclusively as a theater from 1611
to 1615;A Chaste Maid in Cheapside was performed there
in 1613. It was located in the Paris Garden, Southwark, at the
western end of the Bankside, west of Hopton Street (click here for a map: the Swan is on the left, the Globe on the right). Illustration:
the famous 'de Witt sketch' by Arend van Buchel, after a drawing
by his friend Johannes de Witt, who had visited the Swan Theater
around 1596. This is the only contemporary picture of the interior
of an Elizabethan playhouse.

Make it good: Returning property stolen by cutpurses was
evidently a custom of Mary Frith's.

synagogue: meeting-house of thieves where stolen money
and goods are accounted for and divided, officers elected, etc.

cheaters: "The cheating law, or the art of winning
money by false dice. Those that practise this study call themselves
cheaters, the dice cheaters, and the money which they purchase
cheats" (The Bellman of London). Cf. 1 The Honest
Whore IV.ii.

lifters: The lifting law "teacheth a kind of lifting
of goods clean away. The such liftings are three sorts of levers
used to get up the baggage, viz.:
He that first stealeth the parcel is called the lift.
The that receives it is the marker.
He that stands without and carries it away is called the santar"
(The Bellman of London).

some Italian pander: In further support of a 1611 composition
date, Mulholland ties this observation to the Crudities
of Thomas Coryate (?1577-1617), entered in the Stationers' Register
on 26 November 1610 and printed in 1611. The interesting link
is that Prince Henry, who financed its publication, was also the
patron of the company at the Fortune Theater; Mulholland suggests
that this allusion could be either "a token of support for
the beleaguered Coryate" or "a form of advertisement."

booted but not coach'd: Gomme offers various explanations
for this line; the best sense seems to me to be that those who
cheat at dice will be rich or respectable enough to be well-shod
but not enough to ride in coaches.

book: Believed by R. C. Bald to be Martin Mark-All,
Beadle of Bridewell: His Defence and Answer to the Bellman of
London, a pamphlet of 1610, now lost. Its author, one S.
R., and Dekker exchanged hostilities in print, stemming from S.
R.'s deriding Dekker's attempts at rogue literature and questioning
his knowledge of thieves' cant.

The Roaring Girl...recompense: That this passage refers
specifically to Moll Frith herself has been much discussed; it
was certainly within her character, although, as Gomme suggests,
it could refer to the actor playing Moll who was to appear at
the Fortune in another play.